A new urban plan will soon be applicable in Douala.

Violations of land occupation regulations are commonplace in Douala. Neighbourhoods where settlement was forbidden, are not occupied by land-hungry city squatters, but have hardly changed from their slum nature. Unplanned construction of houses and residential structures, poor drainages and lack of potable water, are said to be the cause of terminal infections.

Though the city had an urban plan established way back in 1959, until 2015, only a few houses respected construction regulations. Instead, several neighbourhoods sprang up in unauthorised areas like government land, marshland, hill slopes, on culverts, and along the Wouri Estuary, with the destruction of mangrove swamps. Houses constructed just anyhow and anywhere are often choked up, lacking access ways and are poorly ventilated.

Disorderly construction of homes in the city has been mainly blamed on the outdated urban plan. The urban plan was developed when Douala was inhabited by just 260,000 people, but today there are over 2.7 million inhabitants in the city. It is for this reason that a new urban plan was established in 2015 to become applicable this year 2016.

In this light, the Douala City Council has begun a series of campaigns to sensitise the public on the urban plan as well as on the acquisition and occupation of land. The Douala City Council, led by Fritz Ntone Ntone, the Government Delegate, was in Douala II Subdivision on February 22, 2016, where he explained the importance of the new plan to representatives of the people. Under the auspices of the Divisional Officer, the representatives, who were traditional chiefs, business men and quarter heads, asked questions and were clarified.