Epworth residents seek court protection as 16,000 households face relocation
Forty-seven residents of Epworth’s Hospital Site have asked the High Court to stop threatened demolitions and evictions, as the local authority prepares a wider plan to relocate about 16,000 households from wetlands and unplanned areas.
The residents, led by Samson Ziso, say they face an imminent threat after graders began opening roads and demolishing structures in the area on 30 September. They want the Epworth Local Board restrained from acting before residents have had a chance to discuss a proposal to regularise their settlement. The application is pending.
The wider figure of 16,000 relates to households the board has identified for relocation from ecologically sensitive wetlands and unzoned land. It is not the number of homes named in the residents’ court application. The 47 applicants live in Wards 5 and 6, in an area known as Hospital Site, and say they have occupied the land for years with the local authority’s knowledge.
In his affidavit, Ziso said people began settling there in December 2001. The board later changed their description from “squatters” to “informal settlers” and issued occupier’s cards showing house numbers after an enumeration exercise. Residents say they used those cards to pay monthly rates and development fees, including survey and regularisation charges.
The affidavit traces the dispute through a series of planning decisions. In 2011, the Hospital Site was brought into the Ward 6 Extension Regularisation Programme with the district administrator’s consent. The board appointed Deam Planning Consultancy to carry out another enumeration. The following year, then secretary K. Muhomba wrote to the Department of Physical Planning seeking to change the use of Stand Nos. 6156 and 6157 from the Hospital Site to residential land, saying families were anxious about their status. No formal response came, the affidavit says.
A layout plan, H.O.F. 8 SL 877, was approved on 30 August 2013 and provided for 3,856 stands. The residents say 356 Hospital Site households were counted as part of the programme but were never formally allocated stands.
The dispute deepened after the surveyor working on the development resigned in 2014. The residents say the board then entered an unauthorised agreement with replacement surveyors, Chigumbu and Manyeru, who produced a layout plan that increased the number of stands to 3,904. They argue that the extra plots led to double allocations and sales to people who were not on the original enumeration list.
“On 12 August 2022, the Hospital Site residents had a meeting with the Deputy Surveyor-General, who confirmed that no survey records for the bogus layout plans prepared by the surveyors were submitted for examination and approval, confirming that Layout Plan HOF 8 SL 877 remained the only legal layout plan.”
Ziso says the original enumeration list was meant to give priority to people who had settled in the area earlier. Instead, residents say, some households have faced eviction efforts by people who bought the same stands from other sellers. Cases over alleged double allocations are already before the courts in Wards 5 and 6 Extension.
The applicants say they tried to secure a meeting with the board before approaching the High Court. They sent an appeal to the Provincial Affairs minister on 11 July 2024, setting out their concerns about the regularisation programme. On 1 September 2026, they wrote to the board asking to discuss an in-situ proposal — a plan to regularise the settlement without moving residents away. They say they received no response.
The residents say their concern became urgent after a grader arrived on 30 September. According to Ziso, it was opening new roads and demolishing structures. One driver, residents say, shouted that the teams would extend the work to Hospital Site in the coming days.
“This disturbing and worrying information prompted us to urgently seek legal protection from the court, as there is a reasonable apprehension of fear that the respondent may proceed with unlawful demolitions in the Hospital Site area. This is despite the fact that the residents have not yet had an opportunity to engage and make representations to the respondent,” the affidavit states.
Ziso says residents have paid fees and been recognised by the board, and believe their homes should not be removed without a chance to resolve their status. He warned that demolition would leave families without shelter: “If households who funded and took part in the enumeration and regularisation exercise have their houses demolished, they will be left homeless and with no shelter,” he submitted.
The board’s wider plan, announced in August, is to relocate about 16,000 households living on wetlands or unplanned land once a master plan receives central government approval. Town secretary Dr Wilton Mhanda said the authority had enumerated residents and was trying to prevent further construction in those areas.
“We have about plus or minus 16 000 households on wetlands or unplanned areas,” Mhanda said.
“Currently, what we are doing is to discourage any further development on wetlands or on unplanned areas.
“We have enumerated those people who have been settling on those wetlands for quite some time. What we are looking forward to is the approval of our Master Plan so that we can create space to relocate them from wetlands or any other unplanned areas so that they can settle in new areas where it’s approved and where there could be some services which are actually acceptable.”
The board has also pursued clearances of illegal vending sites and other unauthorised structures. In an interview, Mhanda said the operation had begun on a Sunday and was progressing after a machine was damaged.
“On Monday, we had a setback when our machine was attacked and damaged,” he said.
He said the teams resumed the next day, covering Wards 1, 2, 3 and 4 before moving to Wards 5 and 6. “We are continuing with the exercise. As long as people are on the streets, we will continue but we believe they are going to take heed of the call,” he said. The campaign against street vending and unauthorised structures is separate from the residents’ account of threatened residential demolitions in Hospital Site.
The dispute is unfolding as councils elsewhere in Zimbabwe carry out or prepare for clearances. In Harare, more than 5,000 houses have been listed for demolition under 37 High Court orders, with the city task force reporting that it had surveyed 22,255 sites. The areas identified include Budiriro, Kuwadzana, Glen View, Mabvuku, Greendale, Belvedere, Mabelreign, Tynwald, Crowborough, Southlea Park, Hopley, Tafara and Hatcliffe. The council has also identified about 200 properties along the planned Harare Drive expansion route.
Harare’s stated targets include structures on wetlands, open spaces, farms and land reserved for schools, clinics, roads and other public amenities. Earlier demolitions in Harare South, Whitecliff and St Martins have left families collecting possessions from damaged homes. The city has said its campaign is aimed at unauthorised occupations and construction on land reserved for other uses.
In May, bulldozers moved into Gilstone Farm in Ward 10, Seke, where authorities began demolishing homes and other structures on disputed land. The operation followed a seven-day ultimatum from Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe, who ordered settlers to leave. The farm had originally been allocated to war veterans and collaborators, including people with disabilities. Some occupants said they had bought stands from people presenting themselves as land developers.
Garwe’s more recent nationwide directive calls on local authorities to intensify action against illegal and unregulated development, alongside enforcement against unsafe or dilapidated properties. Councils were told to issue orders requiring responsible parties to stop, rectify or remedy unlawful building work. For properties deemed unsafe, unsanitary or in poor condition, owners may be required to repair, renovate, repaint or clean them. The directive covers residential properties as well as business premises, churches and other buildings; it does not describe every unauthorised home as subject to immediate demolition.
For the Hospital Site residents, the immediate issue remains whether the grader work will reach their homes before the board considers their proposed regularisation plan. Their court application asks for protection while that dispute is heard, against the backdrop of a much larger relocation exercise still awaiting approval of Epworth’s master plan.