KINGS City, an urban land bank owned by Radar Properties, is conceptually a royal community and living experience based on the heritage of Bulawayo as the City of Kings.
DUMISANI NYONI
Bulawayo has a strong, well-documented cultural heritage that is embodied in its brand as the City of Kings.
Located about 8 kilometres from the central business district (CBD) along Gwanda Road, Kings City carries on the same heritage with the concept of building a premium royal community of luxurious, open and spacious homes with a consistent lifestyle experience.
With over 2 000 hectares of prime land, Kings City is an opportunity to create a truly idyllic, picturesque comfort living community.
The generous stand sizes offer an opportunity for every homeowner to fully express themselves with quality interior and exterior spaces.
Radar Properties chief executive Elias Hwenga, whose company is developing the project, told The NewsHawks in an exclusive interview that the project has been well accepted by Zimbabweans both at home and in the diaspora, resulting in an uptake of stands beyond expectations.
“To date, we have sold more than half of the stands in the area that have been serviced and servicing of additional stands is currently underway,” he said.
Hwenga said the first 161 low-density stands have been fully serviced and are awaiting certification by the local authority and thereafter construction can commence.
The second batch of 198 stands is currently being serviced and will be completed in July 2021, he said.
“All our servicing is world class with piped water and tarred roads. Currently on offer are low-density stands ranging from 2 000 -4 000 square metres. We will be commencing the medium-density phase of the development in the third quarter of 2021,” he said.
Hwenga said they have so far invested US$3.5 million on servicing, excluding the value of the land.
“Our focus for the remainder of the year is mainly on rolling out the medium-density phase with stands ranging from 600 to 1 000 square metres. We are very excited about this as it will open the development to a new market segment. We have had a lot of enquiries for these stand sizes,” the Radar boss said.
Despite Covid-19-induced lockdowns, Hwenga said they are still on track with the servicing, thanks to permission to operate uninterrupted from the relevant authorities.
“We have, however, experienced setbacks especially as diaspora-based customers could not travel to Zimbabwe and some have been out of employment,” he said.
Despite working towards the reduction of the urban housing backlog, Hwenga said the project has not received the necessary support from the local authorities.
For instance, the first lot of stands was completed in December 2020 but is yet to receive a certificate of compliance, he said.
“This also delays the issuance of title deeds which are critical for mortgage finance and corporate buyers. The lack of cooperation by Umguza Rural District Council has seriously slowed us down. The execution of big projects under local authorities that are not capacitated to handle them presents a challenge and we implore the Ministry of Local Government to revisit this arrangement,” he said.
The Kings City development has over 9 000 residential, commercial, industrial and other social amenities stands.
The contractor of the project is APG Contractors while conveyancers are Kantor & Immerman. Estate agents are Thompson Properties.
Radar properties is the property development and management division of Radar Holdings Limited (RHL).
Through Radar Properties, RHL aims to provide low-cost housing to Zimbabwe’s population, helping address the prevailing dire national housing backlog of 1.4 million homes.
RHL was founded in 1949 as a multi-faceted operation, with the bulk of its interests being allied to the construction industry. The company currently owns shareholding in Radar Properties as well as Radar Investments (Private) Limited trading as Macdonald Bricks, which is a brick manufacturing company that holds 60% market share.
The subsidiaries’ operations are based in Bulawayo.
The company delisted from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange as a strategic move to create and maintain maximum value for stakeholders.
