Boarding houses should comply with regulations

WE HAVE taken note of the warning by Kitwe City Council (KCC) regarding boarding houses that are overcrowded and lack adequate sanitation facilities. This scenario is certainly not unique to Kitwe – it is the prevailing situation in most urbanised towns, including Lusaka, where demand for higher education far outstrips available facilities, including student accommodation.

The demand for accommodation has led to most landlords opening their properties to students. Or put differently, landlords converting their residential homes to business premises.

Admittedly, it is good business with students most times not minded to paying whatever is being charged as long as they have somewhere to sleep regardless of the standards of the facilities on offer.

But while this may be good business, it has brought about a lot of challenges, often compromising social order and public health. For a start, some of these facilities have no business operating as boarding houses as they lack the basic amenities.

Even their location sometimes makes them inappropriate to run as boarding houses. The Kitwe local authority makes reference to boarding houses in Chipata Township, which is similar to Kalingalinga or Mtendere in Lusaka, where some University of Zambia (UNZA) and Levy Mwanawasa Medical University students rent accommodation.

We remember that in April this year, we had students from Levy Mwanawasa Medical University taking to the streets in protest over what they reported as rising cases of break-ins, thefts, and alleged sexual assaults targeting students in off-campus boarding – the ones not officially provided or approved by the university.

That is one of the risks that comes with these boarding houses. We need to take a hard line stance on boarding houses. Admittedly again, for a very long time, our local authorities have failed to enforce regulations – resulting in what should never have been accepted in our society becoming the norm.

In addition to street vending, you can add home shops selling alcohol, bars and night clubs being open outside operating hours, residents keeping more than the authorised number of dogs, which are even let loose in residential areas, and unauthorised rearing of chickens in residential areas.

But, as Lusaka mayor Chitambala Mwewa has argued and demonstrated with street vending, we cannot allow livelihoods to descend into social anarchy and risk our public health. Therefore, taking a leaf from Lusaka City Council (LCC) and the way it has dealt with street vendors, we are hoping that KCC and indeed other councils will not end at just warning boarding house owners.

We need action. We need to ensure regulations on boarding houses are strictly enforced. This means that before boarding houses open, they ought to comply with local authority regulations, public health standards as well as statutory property laws.

In other words, property owners converting residential houses into boarding houses must obtain due authorisation – change of land use approval, health permit, fire certificate as well as solid waste management compliance. Councils should ensure there is adequate room for sleeping, cooking, and living, together with clean water supply and that the premises are covered under solid waste management regulations.

No-one should just wake up any day to convert their property into a boarding house without meeting the statutory requirements. Even when these are met, it is not a green light for the council to issue the permit.

Some neighbourhoods are not ideal for boarding houses. Beyond meeting statutory regulations, we need to also regulate the fees being charged. In some cases, they are too exorbitant. Unfortunately, in certain cases, the poor students have no option but to pay the amounts demanded. https://enews.daily-mail.co.zm/welcome/home