Yesha
Member
- Jan 28, 2026
- 98
- 45
For years, a house represented more than four walls and a roof for many Zimbabweans.
It was the reward for years of saving, borrowing, sacrificing and postponing other dreams. It was where children grew up, where families planned their futures and, for many, the clearest symbol of having finally achieved stability.
Now, for some families in Harare, that dream lies in piles of rubble.
In St Martins, along Airport Road near 1 Commando Barracks, Harare City Council moved in last week and demolished temporary and permanent structures that it says were illegally built. The operation has left affected families without homes and searching for answers about how they came to be in a housing scheme that authorities now say was unauthorised.
For some residents, the destruction did not end when the bulldozers left.
They moved their belongings to Harare City Council's district offices in Sunningdale, where they have been camping while demanding answers from the local authority.
Dave Jenje, chairman of the St Martins Residents Association, said affected residents were seeking clarification on why their houses were demolished and what would happen to people who had invested money in the housing scheme.
The image is difficult to ignore: families who once had homes are now carrying their possessions to council offices, effectively turning a government building into a temporary shelter.
But behind the rubble is a much bigger question.
How did these families get here in the first place?
The City of Harare has been clear about its position.
The council says it is cracking down on unauthorised land occupations and illegal structures and has warned residents to verify land ownership and planning approvals before buying property or starting construction.
Mayor Jacob Mafume has urged residents with approved building plans to produce their documents when council enforcement teams conduct inspections. He has also advised prospective homeowners to approach the council's housing department or district offices to establish whether stands have been legally allocated and approved.
From the council's perspective, the issue is therefore about enforcing planning laws and stopping the expansion of illegal settlements.
But for the families standing beside demolished homes, the story is not so simple.
Some residents have questioned how structures could reach the stage of permanent houses if the authorities were unaware of what was happening.
NewsDay's editorial on the St Martins demolitions noted claims from some residents that they had been paying council rates and believed their paperwork was in order. Those claims require verification on a case-by-case basis, but they raise an important question: what role did the local authority play before the bulldozers arrived?
If a resident has an allocation letter, receipts, approved building plans or proof of payments to a housing scheme, who issued those documents?
If council officials had previously interacted with the residents, collected payments, inspected properties or otherwise had knowledge of construction, when did the structures become illegal?
And if residents were deceived by land sellers or housing cooperatives, why should the financial consequences fall entirely on the people who lost their homes?
These questions matter because St Martins is not an isolated case.
Harare has been pursuing a much wider demolition campaign. A council task force has assessed 22,255 sites, while authorities have warned that structures built on prohibited or protected land will be targeted. Council officials have also said that more than 5,000 houses could be demolished under 37 High Court orders, alongside structures associated with more than 40 illegal cooperatives.
The targeted areas include parts of Glen View, Budiriro, Kuwadzana, Mabvuku, Hatcliffe, Southlea Park, Hopley, Crowborough and other parts of the capital.
The council's argument is that Harare cannot legitimise unlawful occupation of land reserved for schools, clinics, roads, wetlands and other public infrastructure.
That position is understandable.
A city cannot function if residential development is allowed to take place anywhere without planning controls.
But the human cost of enforcement cannot simply be treated as an administrative footnote.
For a family, a house is not an "illegal structure" in the abstract.
It is a child's bedroom.
It is a kitchen where meals were prepared.
It is a pensioner's retirement plan.
It is years of savings converted into bricks, cement, roofing sheets and labour.
And when that house is demolished, the financial loss can be devastating.
The central issue, therefore, is not whether Zimbabwe needs urban planning laws. It does.
The question is who should carry the cost when ordinary home seekers become trapped in a broken land-allocation system?
Harare's housing crisis has created fertile ground for intermediaries, cooperatives and land sellers promising people access to stands. The council itself has warned that home seekers are falling victim to land barons and criminals selling land without proper authorisation.
But warnings after the fact do little for someone who has already spent thousands of dollars building a house.
The real accountability question is what happened before the bulldozer arrived.
Who allocated the land?
Who collected the money?
Who issued the paperwork?
Who approved the plans?
Who collected rates or other municipal payments?
Who knew construction was taking place?
Who warned residents?
When were they warned?
And, most importantly, what happens to the money and years of investment lost when the structures are demolished?
The same questions have surfaced in previous demolition exercises.
In Stoneridge, for example, residents were left counting their losses after homes were demolished on disputed land earlier this year.
This suggests that Zimbabwe's demolition crisis is not simply about buildings.
It is about trust.
People need to know whether the institutions they approach when buying land can actually protect them from fraudulent or unauthorised transactions.
They need to know whether a receipt, allocation letter or other document means what they think it means.
And they need to know who is accountable when the answer changes years after they have invested their savings.
The residents of St Martins are now asking for those answers from the same local authority whose offices they have turned to for shelter.
That is perhaps the most powerful image from this week's demolitions.
The people who built homes are now sitting at council offices with the remains of those homes packed into trucks, waiting for the institution responsible for regulating the city's land and housing system to tell them what went wrong.
The bulldozers may have cleared the structures.
But they have not cleared the questions.
Who failed these families?
And when the bulldozers leave Harare, who will be left to rebuild their lives?
It was the reward for years of saving, borrowing, sacrificing and postponing other dreams. It was where children grew up, where families planned their futures and, for many, the clearest symbol of having finally achieved stability.
Now, for some families in Harare, that dream lies in piles of rubble.
In St Martins, along Airport Road near 1 Commando Barracks, Harare City Council moved in last week and demolished temporary and permanent structures that it says were illegally built. The operation has left affected families without homes and searching for answers about how they came to be in a housing scheme that authorities now say was unauthorised.
For some residents, the destruction did not end when the bulldozers left.
They moved their belongings to Harare City Council's district offices in Sunningdale, where they have been camping while demanding answers from the local authority.
Dave Jenje, chairman of the St Martins Residents Association, said affected residents were seeking clarification on why their houses were demolished and what would happen to people who had invested money in the housing scheme.
The image is difficult to ignore: families who once had homes are now carrying their possessions to council offices, effectively turning a government building into a temporary shelter.
But behind the rubble is a much bigger question.
How did these families get here in the first place?
The City of Harare has been clear about its position.
The council says it is cracking down on unauthorised land occupations and illegal structures and has warned residents to verify land ownership and planning approvals before buying property or starting construction.
Mayor Jacob Mafume has urged residents with approved building plans to produce their documents when council enforcement teams conduct inspections. He has also advised prospective homeowners to approach the council's housing department or district offices to establish whether stands have been legally allocated and approved.
From the council's perspective, the issue is therefore about enforcing planning laws and stopping the expansion of illegal settlements.
But for the families standing beside demolished homes, the story is not so simple.
Some residents have questioned how structures could reach the stage of permanent houses if the authorities were unaware of what was happening.
NewsDay's editorial on the St Martins demolitions noted claims from some residents that they had been paying council rates and believed their paperwork was in order. Those claims require verification on a case-by-case basis, but they raise an important question: what role did the local authority play before the bulldozers arrived?
If a resident has an allocation letter, receipts, approved building plans or proof of payments to a housing scheme, who issued those documents?
If council officials had previously interacted with the residents, collected payments, inspected properties or otherwise had knowledge of construction, when did the structures become illegal?
And if residents were deceived by land sellers or housing cooperatives, why should the financial consequences fall entirely on the people who lost their homes?
These questions matter because St Martins is not an isolated case.
Harare has been pursuing a much wider demolition campaign. A council task force has assessed 22,255 sites, while authorities have warned that structures built on prohibited or protected land will be targeted. Council officials have also said that more than 5,000 houses could be demolished under 37 High Court orders, alongside structures associated with more than 40 illegal cooperatives.
The targeted areas include parts of Glen View, Budiriro, Kuwadzana, Mabvuku, Hatcliffe, Southlea Park, Hopley, Crowborough and other parts of the capital.
The council's argument is that Harare cannot legitimise unlawful occupation of land reserved for schools, clinics, roads, wetlands and other public infrastructure.
That position is understandable.
A city cannot function if residential development is allowed to take place anywhere without planning controls.
But the human cost of enforcement cannot simply be treated as an administrative footnote.
For a family, a house is not an "illegal structure" in the abstract.
It is a child's bedroom.
It is a kitchen where meals were prepared.
It is a pensioner's retirement plan.
It is years of savings converted into bricks, cement, roofing sheets and labour.
And when that house is demolished, the financial loss can be devastating.
The central issue, therefore, is not whether Zimbabwe needs urban planning laws. It does.
The question is who should carry the cost when ordinary home seekers become trapped in a broken land-allocation system?
Harare's housing crisis has created fertile ground for intermediaries, cooperatives and land sellers promising people access to stands. The council itself has warned that home seekers are falling victim to land barons and criminals selling land without proper authorisation.
But warnings after the fact do little for someone who has already spent thousands of dollars building a house.
The real accountability question is what happened before the bulldozer arrived.
Who allocated the land?
Who collected the money?
Who issued the paperwork?
Who approved the plans?
Who collected rates or other municipal payments?
Who knew construction was taking place?
Who warned residents?
When were they warned?
And, most importantly, what happens to the money and years of investment lost when the structures are demolished?
The same questions have surfaced in previous demolition exercises.
In Stoneridge, for example, residents were left counting their losses after homes were demolished on disputed land earlier this year.
This suggests that Zimbabwe's demolition crisis is not simply about buildings.
It is about trust.
People need to know whether the institutions they approach when buying land can actually protect them from fraudulent or unauthorised transactions.
They need to know whether a receipt, allocation letter or other document means what they think it means.
And they need to know who is accountable when the answer changes years after they have invested their savings.
The residents of St Martins are now asking for those answers from the same local authority whose offices they have turned to for shelter.
That is perhaps the most powerful image from this week's demolitions.
The people who built homes are now sitting at council offices with the remains of those homes packed into trucks, waiting for the institution responsible for regulating the city's land and housing system to tell them what went wrong.
The bulldozers may have cleared the structures.
But they have not cleared the questions.
Who failed these families?
And when the bulldozers leave Harare, who will be left to rebuild their lives?
