Rundu businesses in residential areas asked to rezone

BUSINESS owners in Rundu who operate from residential areas must apply for rezoning, the acting chief executive officer of the Rundu town council, Sikongo Haihambo has said.

Haihambo told Nampa on Friday that a good number of businesses at the town, especially cuca shops and shebeens, operate from residential areas.

“Businesses must operate from a designated business area,” he stated.

He explained that the town council has been issuing fitness certificates where in certain cases, it was not supposed to do so.

“In some cases, conditions were given to business owners to do something about the status of their businesses and people would just go back and forget about these conditions and continue to do business until it is time to reapply for a fitness certificate,” he added.

Haihambo said the situation has been left to degenerate to a point where people see it as normal.

“Some of the houses with shebeens make a lot of noise and have no proper ablution facilities and to them, life just goes on. This is why I said as the Rundu town council we have to go back to the regulations,” he stressed.

“If you are operating from a residential area you have to change the planning status or the zoning status of that area so that you can then go from residential to business,” he clarified.

However, Haihambo pointed out that in order to rezone, business owners have to go through town planning consultants who are currently not available in Rundu but are based in Windhoek.

Some of these consultants charge between N$30 000 and N$50 000 for rezoning, which he said could be a problem for smaller business owners.

Haihambo noted that the town council is aware of the high charges and therefore decided that business owners should at least, by way of a letter, demonstrate that they have approached a consultant.

Thereafter, the council will conditionally approve a fitness certificate, he said.

– Nampa