By Our Correspondent
Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, has clarified that developers of the properties demolished in Mende Villa in Mende, Maryland, Lagos, were issued contravention notices since 2021, with the most recent served in November, 2023.
The commissioner made the clarification in aSunday interview on Arise TV Monitoring Show that contrary to claims in circulating videos by a Mende Villa property developer, the state government authorities had issued contravention notices and marked properties before their demolition last weekend.
”In 2021, my predecessor in office, Mr. Tunji Bello served the developers of properties in Mende Villa who are encroaching theSystem 1 setback contravention notices and they had engagement that runs into months, and years,” Wahab clarified.
In a related issue, the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development in Lagos State, Dr. Oluyinka Olumide, has revealed that over 80% buildings in Ibeju-Lekki area in the eastern part of the state were built without obtaining approval from the government.
Olumide made the disclosure during the on-going yearly ministerial press briefing at Alausa, the seat of Lagos State Government.
According to him, last week, a team from the ministry which he led were in Ibeju- Lekki and Epe axis regarded as a fast growing part of Lagos State.
He said, ” just last week Thursday and Friday, myself and the team were in the Ibeju-Lekki and Epe axis and you will agree with me that anybody passing through the corridor would see a lot of estates marked. We went there, and I can tell you from what we saw, over 80% of them do not have approval.”
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The commissioner explained that in Lagos State, the procedure to build an estate or a house is to get approval from the appropriate authority and get the planning information to know exactly what t.hose areas have been zoned for.
In the case of the marked estates in the Ibeju-Lekki area, the commissioner said, ” what we have is agricultural land , and people go now go to their families to buy agricultural land. Of course, those lands would be sold because those families do not know the use such land would be put to.”
He said the next thing after getting plaanning information from the appropriate quarters is to get fence permit. ”If you missed the earlier information on not knowing what the land or the area is zoned for, at the point of getting the fence permit, you would be ble to detect what the area is zoned for. After that, the layout permits a large expanse of land follows.”
According to the commissioner, a layout permit cannot be obtained if it is not zoned for the purpose it was designed for or for the purpose it was being requested.
”So, you can see all these layers, but people still go ahead to start advertising. Some have even gone to the extent of displaying the size
”Imagine someone in the diaspora who want to send money home for the purpose of building a house in Lagos without any knowledge of zoned land and the layers of what need to be done before construction of the building begin. Then no approval is eventuall gotten.
”Even if they pass the assignment and the survey to them, we would not grant individual permit, because that area is not zoned for that purpose,” the commissioner explained.
NatureNews findings into the plan of the state government over the Lekki peninsula revealed that it had a master plan which was launched during the administration of former governor Bola Tinubu (1999 -2007) and updated under the leadership of Mr. Babtunde Fashola as governor of Lagos State (2007 -2015).
It was discovered that almost all large estates along the Lekki corridor, especially those developed between 2000 -2008, have approved layout plans. That time, it was obligatory and rigidly enforced by the state government.
However, starting in 2010, the plan became distorted with accelerated unapproved construction leading to chaotic development, and many of the smaller schemes that sprung ever since delibrately sought to avoid the large infrastructure burdens of pre-2010 era.
