Implementation and Management of Urban Land Use Plans in Ghana

Abstract

The growth and expansion of urban areas come with benefits and challenges due to their enigmatic nature. As a result, towns and cities need land-use plans to direct and promote their growth in an organized manner to enable a realization of their benefits. Land use plans do not come to any meaningful thing if they are not implemented and managed effectively. This chapter assesses the implementation and management of land use plans in growing cities in Ghana. The chapter is based on a systematic review of existing literature and observations. The findings establish that urban land use planning in Ghana has adopted the three-tier land-use planning model which considers spatial planning at various levels and the types of plans that will be prepared to address the needs of all stakeholders. Urban land-use plan implementation and management in the country are thwarted by slow, cumbersome, and unending land delivery processes, weak participatory approach to land use planning, obsolete land-use policies and methods, and insufficient human and financial resources. Legislations and stakeholder participation are needed in plan preparation, implementation, and management.

1. Introduction

An increase in urban populations from natural growth, net rural–urban migration, and the expansion of urban economies induce the physical expansion of cities. In 1950, 30% of the world’s population was urban. In 2014, 54% of the global population lived in urban areas and, by 2050, 66% of the population is estimated to be urban [1]. In Africa, the rate of urbanization increased from 15% in 1960 to 40% in 2010 and is estimated to reach 60% in 2050. It is expected that urban populations in Africa will triple in the next 50 years [2]. According to Oloyede [3], countries like Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana double their populations every 17 years, with key cities in these countries growing faster by characteristic yearly increases of 10%.

Ghana, like many African countries, is fast urbanizing as a result of rapid urban growth fuelled by a high birth rate, rural–urban migration, and intensified economic liberalization and globalization [4, 5]. In 2020, Ghana was urbanizing at a rate of 3.26% annually and 57.35% of the country’s total population was found in towns and cities [6]. The growth of urban the population necessitates additional space (land) for residential and other urban infrastructural development. According to Osumanu et al. [5], as urban centers grow in size, there is always a high demand for land for different uses and purposes. In Ghana, the growth of cities and towns comes with sporadic physical development in the context of municipal authorities’ inability to minimize the negative externalities associated with rapid expansion while increasing the benefits of urbanization [7, 8]. This threatens urban development and sustainable urbanization [2].

Unmanaged growth of cities and towns in Ghana has resulted in problems including the over-stretching of infrastructural facilities and services, scanty shelter, deteriorating sanitary conditions, chaotic physical developments, and shoddy housing construction [9]. Additionally, it has huge challenges and risks of social tension, insecurity, congestion, and pollution [10]. For a well-organized and orderly urban growth, there is the need for land use plans to direct the expansion in an efficient and sustained manner. Land use plans provide tools and techniques which are used to guide and manage an orderly growth of cities and towns in a deliberate way. As a result, municipal authorities have to prepare land use plans to promote orderly growth and quality environments. Furthermore, completed land use plans come to nothing if they are not properly implemented to conform to their provisions on the ground. According to Feitelson et al. [11], the object of a plan is that its proposals should be put into practice.

The growing problem of violating provisions and proposals in land use plans in urban areas has been a matter of concern in many developing countries, including Ghana. Most of the visible problems challenging urban dwellers as a result of violating the provisions in urban land-use plans include [7, 12, 13, 14]:

• Rising vulnerability of urban populations to disasters, resulting from the construction of residential units in areas disposed to floods and other environmental hazards.

• Insufficient shelter, and inadequately maintained and worsening urban physical infrastructure, particularly water supply, sanitation, and energy.

This phenomenon creates several disorders in urban governance and environmental management [14]. City authorities attempt to mitigate these challenges necessitate the preparation of land use plans to guide development in urban areas. As land-use plans are being implemented over time, coupled with the growing nature of cities, there is the need to understand the processes of implementation and management of the plans to be able to take advantage of the opportunities for effective development control mechanisms for sustainable city growth [2]. This chapter assesses the implementation and management of land use plans in growing cities in Ghana. This will allow a connection to be made between plan preparation, implementation, and management. Again, it will aid in clarifying misconceptions and misinformation about land use plans’ implementation and management and serve as a basis for policies and program formulation to ensure orderly physical growth and sustainable urban development.

This introductory section is followed by a description of the methodology employed by the study. The third section discusses urban land use planning in Ghana and section four assesses the implementation of urban land use planning by focusing on the factors affecting plan implantation and management. This is followed by a presentation of a case study of urban land use implementation and management in Tamale Metropolitan Area (TMA). Section six concludes the chapter with some policy implications.

2. Methodology

The chapter is based on a review of existing literature and observations. It adopted the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) approach [15] to guide the literature screening and review process. Scopus, Web of Science, JSTOR, and Mendeley literature search were searched for articles and reports relevant to urban growth, planning, and land use plans implementation. Search for phrases and keywords were used together, including urbanization, land use planning plans implementation, and management in Ghana. Google, Google Scholar, and Mendeley were used to search for relevant literature. Websites of ministries and agencies involved in land use planning and implementation were also searched for relevant literature. These were further combined with a manual search of references in all selected articles. The bibliography at the end of each retrieved article was sought after should the article discuss a theme on land use plans implementation and management in Ghana.

The following inclusion criteria were employed: (i) urban growth and expansion; (ii) land use planning; (iii) plans implementation and management; (iv) articles were published in English; and (v) articles published from 2010 to 2022. The exclusion criteria were as follows: (i) review articles, case reports, books, guidelines, dissertations, conference proceedings, a consensus of opinions, or other unrelated topics; (ii) those not referring to the association between urban land use planning and plans implantation and management; and (iii) all other languages.

The search strategy and screening of titles and abstracts were conducted against the inclusion criteria. This was followed by an evaluation of full-text articles against the inclusion criteria and the extraction of key information into a spreadsheet. Baseline features and target parameters were then extracted from the selected articles. For each publication, the author, year of publication, and data on land use plan implementation and management were extracted. Furthermore, the data extracted included information on the chapter’s objectives, key results, and recommendations. Priori codes that were generated deductively from previous work on land use plans implementation and management were used to group themes from the data. This was achieved by manually reading through each publication and grouping similar themes and sub-themes. Accuracy was ensured by going back to the sources to verify that all information was correctly interpreted. Vital findings were summarized and any takeaway messages concerning my understanding of urban land-use plans implementation and management and gaps were noted for this study. In addition to the systematic review, personal observation was used to provide a case study of the Tamale Metropolitan Area in northern Ghana. This method enabled me to observe the phenomenon of urban land use plan implementation and management in a most natural setting.

3. Urban land use planning in Ghana

Land use planning is an examination of urban activity systems and a careful estimate of future land use requirements for growth and regeneration, showing how development in urban areas should be carried out to ensure the best conceivable physical environment for functional cities, the most economic use of land, and the appropriate balance in use from a cost-revenue point of view [2, 11, 12]. Essentially, an urban land use plan exemplifies a proposal as to how growth and renewal should proceed in the future, taking into consideration local needs and generally accepted principles of health, safety, convenience, economy, and the overall amenities for urban living. Generally, a primary objective of urban land use planning is to control the development and use of land in the public interest.

Over the years, urban land use planning in Ghana has adopted a three-tier land-use planning model (Figure 1). This model considers spatial planning at various levels and the types of plans that will be prepared to address the needs of all stakeholders. It enables a spatial development framework (SDF) to be formulated for the country, a region, a municipality, or a development corridor. The SDF serves as a framework that expresses the socio-economic policies of an area in a spatial form. It, therefore, provides a spatial expression of how the urban area will look like if it implements its socio-economic policies over a while. Such a spatial expression will interact with social and economic policies to disclose new potentials and synergies for development. According to the Ministry of Environment Science and Technology (MEST) [16], the SDF covers 20 years and makes provisions for the kinds of development that should take place, how much of it should happen, and where and how this should occur to take advantage of emerging opportunities.

Figure 1.

The three-tier spatial planning model. Source: MEST [16].

The second type of plan within the three-tier model is the structure plan. A structure plan is a plan for an urban area that formulates policy and general proposals on social, economic, and spatial aspects of the area [16]. The structure plan is a dimensionally-specific and accurate spatial plan which is used to guide the development or redevelopment of an urban area. It covers 10–15 years and considers the existing situation of a town or city as well as the future needs of the area and then makes a projection for the land required for the area which is expressed in a broader perspective.

Next to the structure plan in the hierarchy of the model in Figure 1 is the local plan. The local plan is a comprehensive and detailed plan which shows the arrangement or disposition of various land uses. It is a digitized, dimensionally-precise layout plan of an area under development that shows individual plots of land, open lands, amenities, movement and transport systems, power, water, and sanitation [17]. The local plan is a spatial plan for a neighborhood or sub-community from which a building permit is granted by the planning authority to developers [16]. The implementation of local plan proposals and development going according to the plan benefits the area in terms of street naming and parcel identification.

The three-tier planning model stresses stakeholders’ participation at all levels of spatial plan preparation and implementation. This will ensure that communities are aware of the proposals in these plans and feel that they own the plans which will enable them to contribute effectively to the implementation and management of the plans [11, 14].

The Land Use and Spatial Planning Act (Act 925) defines a planning area as the territory of Ghana as defined under the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana including the land mass, air space, sub-terrain territory, marine space, and reclaimed lands [18]. According to the Act, the framework for spatial planning in Ghana comprises:

1. the National and Sub-National Spatial Development Framework, which covers the entire country or a part of it including marine space, where the context requires;

2. a Regional Spatial Development Framework for each of the administrative regions of the country or Joint-Regional Spatial Development Framework for multiple regions where appropriate or Sub Regional Spatial Development Framework covering parts of a region where the context requires; or

3. District Spatial Development Framework for each district, or where appropriate, a Joint or Multi-District Spatial Development Framework.

The overall objective of the National Spatial Development Framework is the judicious use of land and the equitable distribution of national infrastructure and facilities in various human settlements of the country. The Regional Spatial Development Framework, Sub-Regional Spatial Development Framework, and Joint or Multi-Regional Spatial Development Framework have their key objectives as the judicious use of land and supportive spatial strategy for exploiting unique regional prospects for increasing regional and national prosperity. The objective of a local plan shall be the judicious use of land for attaining a sound, natural, and built environment and an improved living standard.

4. Implementation of urban land use plans

Planning involves making choices among the opportunities that appear open for the future and securing their implementation, which depends upon the allocation of essential and available resources [19]. Urban land-use planning offers an excellent technique for the management of a range of significant human activities by designing and regulating how people use land and natural resources. Implementation is crucial in the plan preparation process because it is a specified set of actions designed to put into practice all proposed activities or programs of the plan. Development plans articulate policy issues that are suitable for implementation and, to fulfill this role, plans are prepared with written statements, which state the goals and objectives, appropriate policies and proposals, preferred development strategies, and implementation and monitoring modalities [20]. The written statements are reinforced with maps and diagrams that spatially show topographical details, land boundaries, and the dimensions of development proposals. Implementation is the process of bringing the plan into reality [11] and it does not occur overnight. Moreover, if steps are not taken to integrate the plan into existing and new development activities, the result is that the plan becomes a guide for reference [21].

A functional planning system is dependent on effective development control mechanisms which planning authorities, politicians, and communities of beneficiaries of plans expect that the intended outcomes expressed in a proposed plan will be achieved through the implementation process [19]. This means that if plans are not executed appropriately, the desired outcomes would not be achieved.

Land use plan implementation tools are the techniques that are adopted to ensure that provisions made in land use plans are implemented according to plan. Physical development is guided and controlled by planning and implementation tools that are grounded in the preparation of spatial plans and detailed intentions and uses [20]. In Ghana, the land-use implementation tools employed are development control, legal protection of plans, zoning regulations, land subdivision regulations, building regulations, and urban renewal programs [16].

4.1 Factors that affect the implementation and management of urban land use plans

Successful implementation and management of urban land-use plans depend on many factors including judicious allocation of resources in a coordinated manner. A town or city which is well planned has the following contribution to the overall physical development of the area:

1. It facilitates the effective delivery of infrastructural facilities;

2. It does not allow non-conformed uses of land in the same place;

3. It puts land into maximum use; and

4. It improves the quality of the environment.

The physical development of an urban area is to be guided and directed by planning and implementation instruments [20]. This means the absence of some of the implementation and management factors can affect the smooth operationalization of urban land-use plans which will eventually go against the set objectives of the overall urban development agenda [14].

Implementation is simply the art of executing the provisions in any type of plan and it is very critical in the planning process. One of the implications of the interrelationship of plan preparation and implementation is that many plans are more or less doomed to fail from the start because of the content and mode of the presentation and how they were prepared [11, 19].

Plan implementation and management in growing cities in Ghana are generally influenced by a lot of factors. First, the land delivery process is critical in the implementation and management of urban land-use plans. In Ghana, slow, cumbersome, and unending land delivery processes [22] often delay the acquisition of title to land—a prerequisite for development. Consequently, people ignore the process and enter into the land to develop after obtaining permission from the land owners.

Secondly, there is a weak participatory approach to the plan preparation, implementation, and management process [23]. Participatory urban land use planning is a process by which a town or city works actively to achieve a given socio-economic goal by consciously identifying its problems and taking a course of action to deal with those problems [24]. Participation in the decision process allows plans to meet the needs and aspirations of local people. This, therefore, means that if land-use plans are prepared without involving key stakeholders, their implementation and management can face a lot of challenges. Communities and organizations, a whole town or city, an urban neighborhood, a school, a national park management team, a water management committee, or any other group may all be affected. This, therefore, means that if all the interest groups are not involved in the planning process, an implementation that is like the actual execution will encounter problems.

Out-of-date land use planning policies and obsolete laws and regulations are also important. A major constraint to effective and efficient urban land use plan implementation and management in Ghana is the absence of up-to-date and dynamic laws and regulations to guide and regulate land use and management [21]. Land use and management in urban areas are supposed to be guided by effective policies, laws, and regulations. This is because towns and cities grow with time; the needs of urban dwellers 10 years ago might not be the same today. However, most of these policies, laws, and regulations are very old and outdated which is not serving the purpose of modem cities.

Inadequate manpower is also another factor that affects the implementation and management of urban land-use plans in Ghana. Most growing cities do not have qualified urban and spatial planners to manage the implementation and management of their plans [14]. This, therefore, gives room for unqualified persons to handle very well-prepared land use plans on the ground.

Moreover, there is inadequate financial support for planning activities in Ghana. Financial resources are very crucial for the successful implementation of plans [11], such that without enough financial support, no meaningful plan implementation and management can be achieved. Most municipal authorities in Ghana do not make enough budgetary allocation for the implementation and management of land use plans. For example, a close examination of the national budget for the current and previous financial years reveals that no financial allocations were made directly to urban land use planning. Moreover, local taxes, licensing fees, property rates, etc. are often not adequate for financial planning activities.

Planning and implementation of plans in most Ghanaian cities are still based on outdated methods. Outmoded equipment, rather than geographic information systems (GIS), is still being applied in the implementation and management of most plans which makes it difficult to track effectively the progress of plan implementation [23]. The contribution and benefits of GIS to land use planning are now widely acknowledged so much so that it is being applied in many fields as a tool for spatially-reference analysis and data manipulation [8].

5. Case study: tamale metropolitan area

Considering the aim of the chapter, Tamale Metropolitan Area (TMA) is appropriate. The Metropolis has similar characteristics to the other rapidly growing metropolitan areas in Ghana such as Sekondi-Takoradi and Sunyani. Tamale also has a lot of peri-urban communities which are becoming urbanized due to the expansion of the city. Again, most of these peri-urban communities in the Metropolis have planning schemes to guide their physical expansion and development and also to facilitate the provision of infrastructural facilities.

5.1 Historical and physical development of Tamale

According to the Tamale Physical Development Plan (1970–1985), Tamale was founded around the fourteenth century by the Dagombas. Before the coming of colonial administration to the area, there was a collection of five communities or villages: Dagomba (the largest and also called Chigonaba), Bari, Tishigu, Dohinayili, and Monshie Zongo. The early growth of Tamale was due to economic activities and, later, political and social activities. The development of a market in Tamale and its location on the north–south trade route contributed tremendously to the growth of economic activities. The report stated that in 1905, the Northern Regional capital was moved from Gambaga to Tamale, which made Tamale the focal point for entire northern Ghana and beyond. Administration and social functions were added which intensified its growth as more people moved to the city from different parts of northern Ghana and other parts of the country. Government offices were constructed including key developments such as the hospital, police station, prisons, secondary school, and so on.

Tamale was growing and expanding, but there was no conscious planning until 1954. The growth of the town was therefore organic since planning had not been introduced to the town. The Planning Department was established in 1955 and the first plan was prepared in 1964 [25]. Before the establishment of the Town Planning Department, the Survey Department carried out the preparation of layouts for some parts of the town. The result of the unconscious early planning and rather organic development of Tamale and its surroundings on its growth gave it a radial-concentric structure. The main roads radiated from the center and outward with the core characterized by commercial activities surrounded by indigenous residential properties and other residential areas. This radial spider webs structure of the city was established which is associated with the organic growth and has dictated the urban structure of the Metropolis till today.

According to TCPD [25], between 1961 and 1968, eight planning schemes were prepared for Wards D, I, M, A, Nim Avenue, Kukuo, Choggu, and Choggu Manayili. The planning activities undertaken were piecemeal at the time until 1969, when the then Director of Town and Country Planning directed that all regional and district capitals should have 15-year physical development plans. Thus, the first plan for Tamale—Tamale Physical Development plan, 1970–1985 (see Figure 2)—was prepared. In line with the government’s development policy to adopt a growth-pole strategy at the time, Tamale was designated as one of the national growth centers or poles in the country and the need for a plan could not be overemphasized. The growth of Tamale has therefore been guided by the 1970–1985 plan, though implemented with modifications over the years. The plan was for a projected population of 374,000 over its 1970 population of 98,818. According to TCPD [25], there was a minor revision in 1999 but there is a need for the plan to be comprehensively revised to meet current development challenges.

Figure 2.

Tamale physical development plan (1970–1985). Source: TCPD [25].

5.2 Types of land use plans in the Tamale Metropolis

An urban land use plan is a conception of the spatial arrangement of land uses with a set of proposed actions to make it a reality [20]. Land use plans are therefore prepared for different levels of spatial development with a linkage relationship between higher-level plans and lower-level plans. The SDF is mostly for a nation, region, district, or development corridor [16]. The structure plan is prepared to guide the growth of urban areas in a broader land-use perspective while the local plan is meant for a section or neighborhood of a city.

In TMA, the most popular and available land-use plans for implementation are local/sector layouts (Figure 3) with less focus on SDF and Structure plans. This is not compliant with the objectives of the three-tier spatial planning model in Ghana [16] that structure plans provide the framework within which all local plans for a city or town should comply. This situation creates a missing link and improper coordination in land-use implementation and management in the Metropolis. It also allows plans to be prepared for only sections of communities without proper needs assessment for the entire Metropolis, a situation which might neglect certain sensitive community needs and also make it impossible for growth poles to be established in the area.

Figure 3.

Example of a local plan in TMA. Source: TCPD [25].

5.3 Implementation and management of land use plans in Tamale Metropolitan Area

Implementation and management are crucial in the plan preparation process because they are specified sets of actions designed to put into practice all proposed activities of a plan. It is at this stage that the intentions of the plan are executed to the realization of set objectives. Effective implementation and management of plans depend on efficient and committed institutional arrangements as well as the availability of resources [21]. The implementation and management of land use plans in TMA is the responsibility of the land sector agencies such as the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority (LUSPA), Lands Commission, and the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA). Also, land use plan preparation has a lot of components that are handled by separate organizations and for that matter, roles are assigned to institutions in the implementation and management of the plans.

Some basic techniques and strategies are adopted by institutions in TMA to ensure that provisions made in land use plans are implemented according to plan. The basic techniques and strategies are enforcement notice, zoning and planning regulations, demarcation of approved plans, and granting of development permits.

Implementation and management of land use plans in TMA are hindered by many factors. The land delivery system in the Metropolis is slow, cumbersome, and unending which delays the acquisition of title to land—a prerequisite for development. Also, the land ownership system is characterized by land title insecurity, encroachment of public lands, multiple sale of lands, and general land market indiscipline. These challenges in the land ownership system are associated with the inability of land sector agencies to effectively implement and manage land use plans. Again, the Metropolitan LUSPA and TaMA, the main institutions responsible for the implementation and management of land use plans, are faced with inadequate staff and logistics. Other challenges include a weak participatory approach to plan preparation and weak land-use policies and regulations.

LUSPA is a service delivery agency under the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation (MESTI). It is a decentralized institution that operates at the national and regional levels. At the Metropolitan level, LUSPA provides technical guidance for the physical planning department of TaMA with the main responsibility of preparing human settlement plans and related services to guide and control the physical development of the Metropolis [26]. LUSPA has the responsibility of planning and land use management to ensure and promote the orderly growth and development of human settlements in the Metropolis, which will contribute to quality living environments and sustainable urbanization. The Authority plays a crucial role in the preparation and implementation of land use plans in the Metropolis. It also does a supervisory, monitoring, and coordinating role in spatial planning matters within the Metropolis [26]. As part of its mandate, the Authority prepares land use plans to guide the orderly growth and development of settlements as well as process development applications for approval by the statutory planning committee of TaMA.

Land use plan preparation in TMA is not participatory enough because consultation is limited to only chiefs and their elders with the belief that the views of these people represent that of the communities. Currently, land use plans are prepared based on demand or requests from sub-chiefs through their paramount chiefs. LUSPA meets with the chiefs and elders for them to establish the boundaries of the intended land and any other parcel in the area after a request has been made to the authority to explain the processes involved in the plan preparation. The Survey and Mapping Division of the Lands Commission is contacted for a base map that details the existing structures on the ground after which a plan is prepared. A plan is a draft form that is then presented to the chiefs and elders for their input before the planning committee of TaMA approves the final implementation plan. The plan is then forwarded to the chiefs/land owners by requesting them to engage the services of qualified surveyors, specifically the Survey and Mapping Division, to do demarcations. Mostly, the chiefs tend to use unqualified professionals for the fact that some of them do not know the right surveyors and also with the view that the charges of the official surveyors are high. The current plan preparation procedure does not allow socio-economic data to be collected, and analyzed and needs assessment done before coming out with proposals in the plan. Thus, planning proposals are based on conjunctures or coarse assumptions that people should be given what ought to be and not based on reliable estimates of wants. Also, most of the land use plans in the Metropolis are not covered by official reports, and, for that matter, implementation and management strategies are not spelled out. This, therefore, means that the plans might not be addressing the aspirations of the people which can affect their implementation and management.

6. Conclusion: some policy implications

Towns and cities in Ghana are fast expanding with daunting challenges for orderly physical development. Rapid urbanization and the increasing need for urban infrastructure have escalated the need for effective implementation and management of land use plans. This chapter has assessed the implementation and management of urban land-use plans in growing Ghanaian cities. It has also presented a case study of land use implementation and management in TMA. The lack of effective implementation and management of urban land use plans in the country is a reflection of the slow, cumbersome, and unending land delivery process, weak participatory approach to land use planning, outdated and outmoded land-use policies and methods, and inadequate manpower and financial resources. This suggests that Ghanaian towns and cities are yet to get prepared for efficient implementation and management of land use plans for sustainable urbanization. Technologies for plan preparation, implementation, and management are still based on outmoded methods instead of GIS techniques which makes it difficult to track the progress of plan implementation. Weak institutional capacity, coupled with poor coordination in land use planning activities, thwart attempts to implement and manage urban land use plans.

Legislations are needed in the preparation of urban land use plans and their implementation and management because they set the direction for developers to follow and the possible punishment for those who contravene regulations. These regulations then put some level of consciousness into people and guide them to do the right thing to ensure that compliance with land use plan provisions is high. Moreover, one of the key elements in the decentralized development planning system is the participation of local communities in planning decisions that affect them. The preparation of urban land-use plans in Ghana must be participatory and consultative. In the process, key stakeholders must be identified and taken through the stages in the plan preparation process. Besides, draft plans must be displayed in public areas with officers around to explain the proposals to people and take inputs from the public to be incorporated into the final plans. This would also allow for a comprehensive report to be prepared for the plans and their implementation and management strategies spelled.

Conflict of interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.