HDAN Kicks As FCT Green Belts Disappear

The Housing Development Advocacy Network (HDAN) has called connected the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to halt the allocation and conversion of designated greenish areas successful Abuja, informing that specified practices endanger the city’s biology sustainability, municipality readying integrity and the prime of beingness of residents.

HDAN, a starring civilian nine organisation championing lodging rights and sustainable municipality improvement successful Nigeria, raised an alarm that parks, gardens and buffer zones primitively reserved arsenic greenish lungs of the metropolis are present being eroded done indiscriminate onshore allocations for commercialized and residential developments.

The radical said this trend, if near unchecked, could plunge the superior into terrible environmental, social, and infrastructural crises.

“Abuja was cautiously planned with circumstantial provisions for greenish areas to guarantee a steadfast surviving environment. Unfortunately, we are witnessing the gradual encroachment connected these spaces, which not lone violates the city’s maestro program but besides endangers its aboriginal sustainability,” HDAN stated.

According to the group’s Executive Director, Festus Adebayo, greenish areas are indispensable for regulating municipality temperature, improving aerial quality, reducing flooding, and providing much-needed recreational spaces for families and communities.

HDAN warned that turning specified spaces into factual jungles poses semipermanent dangers to the situation and undermines Abuja’s archetypal imaginativeness arsenic a exemplary city.

Adebayo stressed that HDAN has received aggregate reports from stakeholders successful housing, existent estate, and biology extortion sectors raising concerns astir the expanding nonaccomplishment of greenish zones.

“The demolition of these areas is not conscionable an biology issue, it is besides a governance and accountability matter,” helium emphasized, noting that preserving greenish spaces is captious to ensuring that Abuja does not go a metropolis defined by congestion, pollution, and mediocre livability.

Residents person besides raised alarm implicit the conversion of Abuja’s designated greenish belts into estates and backstage developments.

In respective districts specified arsenic Guzape, Maitama, Wuse, Katampe, and Kado, areas primitively mapped arsenic inferior corridors and biology buffers person been fenced, cleared, and built upon.

This trend, they warn, is already taking a toll connected the city, with flooding, burst sewer lines, and worsening aerial prime becoming much frequent, peculiarly during the rainy play erstwhile earthy h2o channels are obstructed.

They besides caution that unchecked improvement could worsen postulation congestion, deprive children of recreational spaces, and exposure communities to wellness and information risks.

Experts person added that siting structures adjacent waterways and straight nether powerfulness transmission lines not lone violates information standards but besides heightens the hazard of disasters.

The increasing interest is that Abuja is gradually losing its biology equilibrium and livability owed to the erosion of its greenish areas.

HDAN further urged the FCT to prioritise strict enforcement of the Abuja Master Plan, guarantee transparency successful onshore allocations, and motorboat a broad audit of each areas designated arsenic greenish zones.

Adebayo besides called for stronger collaboration with municipality planners, environmentalists, and lodging advocates to make sustainable solutions for improvement without compromising greenish infrastructure.

“Cities crossed the satellite are embracing greener and much sustainable municipality policies, but Abuja risks moving successful the other absorption if this contented is not urgently addressed. Protecting our greenish spaces is not negotiable; it is astir safeguarding the aboriginal of the superior and ensuring the wellbeing of generations to come,” helium said.

While acknowledging the tremendous pressures connected onshore successful the FCT owed to accelerated urbanisation, HDAN maintained that specified challenges should not warrant the demolition of spaces that are meant to service corporate nationalist interest. Instead, it urged the authorities to research innovative lodging and infrastructure policies that equilibrium maturation with sustainability.

The advocacy radical besides appealed to the Minister to perceive to the voices of stakeholders successful the lodging and municipality improvement assemblage who person consistently warned against tampering with Abuja’s greenish belts.

“This is the clip for decisive enactment to support what is near of the city’s earthy practice and reconstruct assurance successful municipality governance,” HDAN emphasised.