THE GRAND PLAN

 

The annual flooding of the Segoditshane River may be a thing of the past if government’s ambitious plans to transform the Segoditshane Corridor into an ecological corridor with mixed land use comes to fruition.

Acting Director of the Department of Town and Country Planning, Kebonyemodisa Ooke is upbeat that the masterplan, which is at an advanced stage, will cater for recreational facilities, about 400 mixed use plots for development of apartments, shopping malls, among other developments.

The grand vision is to transform this unsafe place into a spectacle of a river across the city that can also be a tourist attraction like in Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

It is envisaged to have cycling pads around the river, water fountains and landmarks. Ooke himself admits that in its current form the Segoditshane River is not a safe place to live in or around.

“The Segoditshane River Corridor remains largely unutilised and subject to environmental degradation,” Ooke says, adding that proper development, use and management of open spaces in the capital city is a problem because more than 90 per cent of the city’s open spaces have remained undeveloped and ill-managed, resulting in them being unkempt and used as refuse dumping areas by residents.

Once developed, Ooke says this area would accommodate over 10 000 predominantly young people in two-storey apartment buildings. The plan is to employ Public Private Partnerships for infrastructure development. He admits that controlling the river channel has been a challenge. Therefore, the plan envisages more water control measures to restrain it from going into residential plots.

Segoditshane Corridor divides Gaborone into the north and south parts and runs all the way from Mogoditshane Block 7, Tsolamosese, Gaborone Block 9, through Block 5, Block 3, Ginger, Tsholofelo and Glen Valley. The project measures 543.29 hectares and 13.97 kilometres.

Currently, the corridor comprises of predominantly single-family residential and civic uses on either side of the river channel with little or no interaction.

In addition, the positioning of the properties is oriented away from the corridor resulting in isolation of the corridor. Other challenges include the fact that some plots are in flood prone areas, predominant low densities and mono

use, high crime area, illegal dumping that compromises the environment and sewage ponds are located on pristine land and are a source of pollution.

According to the Masterplan, most of the year, the corridor stretches is characterised by thick dense vegetation that often offers criminals hiding spots. There are also utility lines and points such as manholes, waste and dry channels. In its current state, the corridor is unappealing to the eye.

The Masterplan also seeks to ensure that the river is restored to carry out its primary function of safely ferrying water across the city.

The Masterplan recommends the use of water retention ponds along the river as additional storage capacity during heavy rains.

It recommends designing and building mechanisms to control water movement in and out of the retention ponds in response to the heavy rain seasons and reducing velocity of surface runoff.

It also recommends the development of a comprehensive network to ensure that the existing storm water drainage outlets ultimately deposits water into the dredged river channel.