Kinyinya Green City: Nobody will be displaced from Kinyinya Hill
- Not moving alone is part of the Green City sustainability
- The idea is going to allow everyone to stay by adopting sustainable principles
- Apart from Kinyinya Project, there are many other projects for second cities in Rwanda.
- Green Cities are solution to the growing number of people living in urban areas.
By Ange de la Victoire Dusabemungu
The Rwandan Government and its partners continue to join effort to see an exemplary green city in Africa elevated at Kinyinya Hill in Gasabo District in the City of Kigali.
The 5 billion dollars environmental- friendly city will occupy the area of 620 hectares with environmentally sustainable affordable housing for everyone including citizens already living on Kinyinya Hill.
The Construction Phase is expected to kick off by October, 2020, according to Hubert Ruzibiza, the Chief Executive Officer of the Rwanda Green Fund (FONERWA) which is Mobilizing Resources for the Green Economy.
At this stage a feasibility study for the Kinyinya Green City Pilot Project has completed and submitted to the concerned agency for evaluation.
Nobody will be forced to relocate
According to officials, the existing population on Kinyinya Hill will not move.
In Rwanda, Citizens are accustomed to the relocation when a development project is going to take place in their area of residence.
They relocate after being compensated by the project owners.
However, speaking at the Opening Ceremony for Kigali as a Sustainable City Exhibition held at the School of Architecture and Built Environment (SABE) on Thursday, 25th July 2019, Eudes Kayumba, Deputy Team Leader of the Green City Pilot Project said “As Deputy Team Leader I have been presenting this Project and get calls asking ‘What is the compensation rate? When are these people going to move?’”,
“We always tell people nobody is going to move and nobody should move. Actually that alone is part of the sustainability.” He explains.
In the first phase which is done already, the team already submitted the feasibility study which was preceded by an inception report.
“After the feasibility we are going to have a proposal master plan. That will be followed by the competition…we want to invite strong reputable firms globally to come and compete on this project.” Kayumba revealed
“As you can see this is a total of 620 ha but there are many features which are in the area of the former land of Radio DW. DW land alone is around 86 ha and then we have another piece of land which is owned by Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB) that is around 180 ha. Already through feasibility, we have started looking on the existing situation and where exactly activities are going to be concentrated.” He noted
Kayumba explained that “We have DW land as very important land, park of which actually we want to keep as green for the purpose of Eco-tourism and Eco-Park for birds and flora and Faunas. Then we have the remaining parts which are already occupied and mostly other part which is empty for the development.”
“After looking at the existing situation we have identified areas where we have some activities like Commercial area in Kinyinya centre, a bus station, etc…” Kayumba reveals.
Hubert Ruzibiza, the CEO of the Rwanda Green Fund (FONERWA) said “Apart from Kinyinya Project, we have many other projects for second cities. On moving citizens already settled, I think there are Authorities in charge like City of Kigali and Ministries involved but the idea is going to allow everyone to stay by adopting sustainable principles.
Today the Rwanda Green Fund is with the German Development Cooperation through the KfW Development Bank to ensure the smooth running of the planned activities.
However Ruzibiza noted that “At this stage we are working with KfW so far and we are expecting so more funding from other donors…
“For the construction Phase, we hope that by October, 2020 we can start but let us first settle the issues of feasibility study, funding, Design Competition in order to come up with the good result.”
Why Rwanda Green Cities are important?
Dorothea Groth, Head of Development Cooperation in the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Kigali says “The first thing that why urbanization is important for Rwanda is that we have seen in past years that cities have grown, we have seen that Kigali has been growing and the target for 2024 is that 44% of the population will live in the cities…and that means that cities have to develop in sustainable to become livable for people.”
Madam Dorothea on the point of financing Kigali Green City Pilot explains “Why are we making this effort, why FONERWA is making this effort to have pilot for sustainable cities which have affordable houses as one of issues that Rwanda face?”
“We want People to live there and it should be pilot for Rwanda and for developing world. It should be a pilot for Africa because we want to show that we have cities in Africa that can have a good environment for people and can be environmental friendly.” She emphasized.
Partners in the Project are the Government of Rwanda through FONERWA, the Germany Development Bank, KfW, Green Climate Fund and SWECO, a European engineering and architecture firm, to support the implementation of the project
