By Bridget Ikyado Tikyaa
Mr Ternongo Mede, the General Manager of Benue State Urban Development Board, says the state government will review its development masterplan to reflect the current realities.
Mede stating the reasons for reviewing the masterplan that was developed in 1976.
He described a masterplan as a comprehensive idea of what the administration would want a town or settlement to look like.
He said that the masterplan designates areas for every activity to ensure orderliness, easy access, and the beauty of the town.
“The masterplan will show where the industrial areas are supposed to be, where the educational line uses are kept, and where the residential line uses are supposed to be kept, and all those various uses must be linked up.
“You don’t just drop the industrial area close to the residential areas because you don’t want the waste from those industrial areas to get to the residential areas.
“So we need to infuse the residential and educational areas in the same part.
“The residential areas can be into three, which are the low-density areas such as GRA, then the medium and high areas”, he explained.
He, however, noted that developing a new masterplan would require a lot of funds and might not be wholly feasible at the moment.
He, nonetheless, said that a segmented approach would be adopted by taking the major towns in the state first.
“We have more than 25 urban centres, so having a masterplan now in all of these urban centres is a huge task because of scarce resources.
“I think it is better we see how we can get the masterplan for some of these major towns, which are Markurdi, Gboko, Otukpo, and Vandeikya, before others”, the general manager said.
