Folks, The following was sent to me by Taffa Njie throwing more light into the Brufut land allocated to him for his "Operation House the Nation" project. He is in the process of scanning the scaled map showing where the TDA lies and where he was allocated land for his project. Hopefully, this would be available soon and I will forward it to George or Yus to put on the Post. The same would also be done for Gambia-L subscribers. After doing that I will report my discussions with him concerning the same and hopefully fill up some of the gaps that may be there. Have a good day, Gassa. PS. This was prepared by Mr. Buba Barry, former Director of Physical Pllaning and Lands and was supported earlier, when I first got involved in this debate, by Mr. Tamsir Mbye - PS Dos-WID, Dr. Saidou Jallow - PS Tourism and Dr. Rodie Cole, achitect and consultant. ===============From Taf Holding Company Limited============= In order to provide for a more efficient land administration, the State Lands Act was passed in 1991 to replace the Lands (Banjul and Kombo St Mary) Act cap 102 and to provide for a unitary title system in designated areas. The objective being; security of tenure – 99 year leases - to encourage investment in land for physical development, a more efficient transfer process of landed property and the freeing of land from customary tenure to be made available for development. In line with these objectives, Kombo North, South and Central were declared State Land in 1993. In 1970, the Tourism Development Area (TDA) was legally designated The TDA covers an area of half a mile – approximately 800 metres, inland from the high water mark and runs from the Kotu stream to the Alahein river at Kartong. Part of the area that constitutes the TDA was leased to Government, for a period of 99 years, by the Kombo North (from Kololi point to River Tanji) and Kombo South ( from River Tanji to River Alahein) District Authorities. The 1988 Greater Banjul Area (GBA) Land Use Plan 2000 serves as a guiding plan for development in the GBA including the TDA and contrary to popular belief the Masterplan does not legally reduce the extent of any part of the TDA. When Taf Holding Company Limited applied for land under its housing development project, the application was forwarded to the Land Administration Board for consideration. After several sittings on the matter, the Board approved the application subject to the following: · the application be considered and endorsed by the then Tourism Area Development Area Board since the land applied for falls within the TDA and · the Physical Planning Development Board to consider the issue of a change of use since the area was designated for tourism purposes. After the TDA endorsed the application and the change of use granted by the Planning Board, the Land Administration approved the allocation but considering the scope of the project, the Department of State for Local government and Lands further submitted the matter to Cabinet for final approval. Cabinet considered the application and approved the allocation to Taf Holding Company Limited of two sites – Yundum and Brufut on condition that the Yundum project is implemented first. It is worth noting that the extent of land allocated to Taf holding at Brufut fell far short of what was originally recommended by the Department of State for Local Government and Lands due to the fact that there were squatters on the land. The site finally allocated to Taf Holding Company was devoid of any developments and free from squatters. -- There is a time in the life of every problem when it is big enough to see, yet small enough to solve (Mike Leavitt) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~