Abstract

Uncontrolled land use and access to a public utility is a serious issue and a matter of concern that need to be addressed properly by controlling the rapid development growth to ensure the availability and equitable access to utility supply in Tiko municipality.

This motivated me to investigate the available public utilities, the various actors involved, their roles and responsibilities, the causes of uncontrolled land use, the problem faced by the population in accessing public utilities, and to propose strategies to solve the uncontrolled land use.

Data for the research was collected from two main sources, thus through fieldwork and review of reference documents sample size for this study was 70 respondents, the actual return was 66 respondents, and the rate of questionnaires was 80%.

The data collection instrument used was a questionnaire. The instrument was based on two sections that is demographic and research objectives respectively and they constitute both closed and open-ended questionnaires.

This study is make up of qualitative and quantitative data. Excel spread sheet and SPSS version 21.0 was used for this analysis.

Male and female were sampled for this study 34 (5105%) male and 32 (48.5%) female.

Some key issues that cause uncontrolled land use were discussed such as population growth, rural exodus, high demand for housing, lack of corporation between the state and the local council, etc.

More so, some challenges faced by public utilities were also seen such as; inadequate supply, insufficient funds, inadequate visibility studies, poor topography, and poor management, etc.

Some recommendations were made to ameliorate the situation thus the state should take up her responsibility to provide the public utility in collaboration with the council and other development partners.

The council should come up with their land-use plan which will spell out how the municipality has to be developed. And serious building permit control should be done regularly to control the development process and access to public utilities in the municipality.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background To The Study

The existence of a council in Cameroon can be traced far back during the colonial period with different appellations. According to law, No 74/23 of 5th December 1974 creates an organizing council in the republic of Cameroon a council shall be a decentralized public authority having the status of a corporate body under public law.

It shall have legal personality and financial autonomy. It shall administer local affairs under the supervision of the state to secure the economic, social, and cultural development of its population.

As the council grows from one step to another that is how the functions and challenges of the council also step from one level to another. With the coming of decentralization, law no 2004/018 of 22 July 2004 laid down rules applicable to councils. Section (1) states that the council shall have a general mission of promoting local development and improving the living condition of their inhabitant.

Section 17 of the same law state powers devolved to councils. In the definition above, it is clear that councils have to develop their land and provide public utilities to the population in their municipality.

By so doing, the council has to function in line with the rules and regulations put in place by the state. For the council to carry out the collection of revenues well in order to invest in her development process, councils need to provide public utility services in the community to attract investors in order to have access to a stable means of revenue collection.

In our towns and cities today, the rapid growth of the population and urban land use is very fast.  The council has a responsibility to provide public utilities in the community for the population to have a healthy and better life. Uncontrolled urban land use and access to public utilities is a serious challenge and a matter of concern to the state, the council, other development partners, and the population in general.

In our towns and cities, this is not the case; there is half hazard use of urban land without any planification tool put in places such as the master plan, the land use plan, or sector plan to control this rapid growth of urban land by the state and the council. Because of this, access to public utilities is very slow and, in some areas, they are very absent.

The Government of Cameroon as well as the council is making efforts to control the rapid development growth of her town and cities and to improve on the public utilities by putting up the good legal framework, public investment budget, council budget, good partnership with investors, etc to ameliorate this situation.

Law No 2004/18 of 22 July 2004 lying down rules applicable to the council.

Section 3 (1) states that councils shall have a general mission of promoting local development and improving the living condition of their inhabitants.

Section 17 of the same law states that the following powers shall be devolved upon councils

–           Developing and managing public urban parks

–           Drawing up and executing council investment plans

–           Awarding in an association with the state or the region, contract plan for the achievement of development objectives

–           Preparing land tenure plans, town planning documents,s and concert development, and consolidation plans

–           Organizing and managing public urban transport

–           Carrying out land development operation

–           Issuing town planning certificates, authorization to subdivide real estate, authorization to settle, building and demolition permits

–           Building and maintaining council roads and conducting similar activities,

–           Developing and servicing housing estate

–           Lighting public highways

–           Addressing and naming streets, public squares, and edified.

–           Constructing and maintaining unclassified rural roads and ferry-bats.

–           Setting up industrial zones

–           Contributing to the electrification of areas inhabited by the poor

–           Granting authorization for temporal settlement and other works.

In urban areas of Cameroon, the demand for access to public utilities increase continuously as the population grows.

Over the last decades, the demand for public utilities in some major towns and cities in Cameroon such as Yaoundé, Douala, Bamenda, and Bafoussam, etc was very high and this made the inhabitants live a difficult life in our towns and cities.

Today, there are still so many communities without access to public utilities in Cameroon. With the rapid growth and advanced modernization, careful provisions were not made for the access to public utilities and how urban land use has to be managed in Tiko municipality.

Today, the authorizing officer has to make  a lot of efforts to improve this situation by recruiting competent engineers in the technical services, going into partnership with PNDP for the funding and realization of some major projects in the municipality, putting up the building permit control team to control urbanization process of the council area and also putting up a building permit commission that examines and give recommendation on all building projects in the municipality following town planning rules and regulations and this commission is made up of competent actors such as representatives of the council, urban development and housing, army rescue, environment, health, architects and engineers of the National order, etc. to improve on the present situation.

This study was therefore carried out to find out the impact of uncontrolled urban land use on public utilities in Tiko Municipality, the different stakeholders involved, their roles and responsibilities, to do findings, to make proposals and recommendations, which could ameliorate the living standard of the community.

1.2 Statement Of The Problems

Urban land use involves the design and coordination of all that makeup cities and towns. Buildings are the most pronounced elements of urban design – they shape and articulate space by forming the street walls of the city.

Well-designed buildings and groups of buildings work together to create a sense of place. Public spaces are the living room of the city – the place where people come together to enjoy the city and each other.

Public spaces make high-quality life in the city possible – they form the stage and backdrop to the drama of life. Streets are the connections between spaces and places, as well as being spaces themselves.  Their physical dimension and character as well as the size, scale, and character of the buildings that line them define them.

Hence, the pattern of the street network is part of what defines a city and what makes each city unique. Transport systems connect the parts of cities and help shape them, and enable movement throughout the city.  They include road, rail, bicycle, and pedestrian networks, and together form the total movement system of a city.

The landscape is the green part of the city that weaves throughout – in the form of urban parks, street trees, plants, flowers, and water in many forms. The landscape helps define the character and beauty of a city and creates soft, contrasting spaces and elements.

However, in Cameroon, the case is not the same as cited above. In most of our towns and cities especially Tiko Municipality, structures are belt spontaneously without the respect of town planning rules and regulations put in place by the state. I realize that pedestrians, cars, bicycles that form the total movement system use the same road network without any separation.

Most of the road network systems have dead-end, streets that are not up to standards, poor interconnections of transport network system, and poor landscape, which was supposed to bring out the esthetic of the municipality. With all these setbacks, the access to public utilities is not accessible and consistent,

In response to these shortcomings, this study seeks to investigate and make proposals to several options to solve the uncontrolled urban land use and access to public utilities to ameliorate the living standard of the population in Tiko Municipality.

1.3. Research Question

1.3.1 General Research Question

-What are the impacts of uncontrolled land use on public utilities on the population?

1.3.2 Specific Research Question

1. What are the public utilities, which are available in Tiko Municipality?
2. Who are the actors and their role in controlling urban land use and access to public utilities in Tiko Municipality?
3. What are the causes of uncontrolled urban land use on public utilities in Tiko Municipality?
4. What are the related problems of uncontrolled land use to the population in Tiko Municipality?
5. What are the strategies used to solve uncontrolled land use in Tiko Municipality?