Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Major Determinant of Physical Development on Urban Residential Land: The Case of Kalulushi Municipality in Zambia

2017; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

1556-5068

Ephraim Kabunda Munshifwa, Wilson Ngoma, Ikugile Makenja,

Urban and Rural Development Challenges

The debate on property as opposed to has grown in institutional literature. In the real estate development context this can be extended to examining the question on what the major determinant of commencement of physical development (or 'house starts') is between 'property' and 'possession' in the minds of residential allotees on urban land. For land acquired through extra-legal mechanisms, economists, such as Hermando de Soto, have argued that lack of title impedes physical development in urban areas. What about on land acquired through legal means? This study examined this question by conceptualising land grants through the public land allocation system as having two distinct parts, possession, that is grants still at offer letter stage and property, constituting grants where legal title in the form of certificates of titles have been registered. The observation in Zambia is that physical development commences with or without certificates of titles, that is, mostly at possession stage. This study finds that contrary to most literature, titling is not the immediate concern for most allotees on public land. The first concern is development of the plot then title. A number of reasons account for this and are explained in this paper. Thus the study hypothesised that although in the long run legal title is essential, possession is more important for the commencement of physical development in most developing countries such as Zambia.