Building skyscrapers will save land

Ghanaians should start exploring options for the construction of taller buildings to save land space, Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, Dr Wilfred K. Anim-Odame has said.

He was of the view that the boundaries of the country are not movable with a fixed land size hence developers need to be futuristic to preserve enough lands for future generation.

“I think as a nation we should put a halt to horizontal spread of our cities because the land size is fixed and we are holding this land in trust for the future generation. Our children, our grandchildren and great grandchildren should also be able to come and have land to develop. So my advice is that we should rather encourage vertical development against horizontal,” Dr Anim-Odame said in an interview with ClassFMonline.com on the sidelines of a conference in Accra on Tuesday, 20 March 2018.

Dr Anim-Odame is also advocating schemes that will regulate land use patterns and also ensure proper land management. He wants proper planning before development and construction of lands to ease title registration as well as proper use of lands.

For him, “a commercial land must open space; a residential land must also have open space to allow free air and for fire escape”.

He further cautioned the public to desist from purchasing land like any ordinary commodity and charged land buyers to follow due process.

He further urged members of the public to engage lawyers to scrutinise land documents before committing hard-earned money to the purchase of any parcel of land.

“Most often, we buy land in a rush. We see bare land and then we think that is it. Land is not the physical nature that we see but a bundle of interests in it. Some have tenancy agreement others have leases or right of way. So whenever we are involved in transactions relating to land, we have to be patient and do due diligence,” he said, adding “more of the lands that we see are liabilities than opportunities”.