Building boom upsets locals

– It took one morning in late May to cut a large chunk from the side of a seaside volcanic hill in Senegal’s capital Dakar, to make way for a hotel.

A man had turned up with permits and diggers and got to work, according to Mamadou Mignane Diouf, an official from a local campaign group called Forum Social, which fought against the development.

“No one should build here,” said Diouf, who explained that the hill, which supports the city’s lighthouse, is a protected site.

Exploitable land is limited in the rapidly expanding west African metropolis of about three million people, which is situated on a peninsula that juts into the Atlantic.

For years, developers have targeted Dakar’s picture-postcard shoreline for developing luxury hotels and apartment blocks, manoeuvring anarchic building regulations.

But with open spaces declining, locals are complaining the shoreline is being destroyed and that developments block their access to some of the last open spaces in the cramped city.

May’s incident with the volcanic hill touched a nerve, triggering protests as well as a national debate about how to conserve the shoreline.

A Dakar landmark, the seaside hill is one of a pair known as the mamelles – French for “udders” – and is already surrounded by building sites.

Local police have stopped the building work after the uproar, but a large earth-red gouge remains in the hillside.

“They’ve already done a lot of damage,” said Diouf, standing among rubble at the foot of the hill.

“Why do a few privileged people think that only they have the right to access the coast, to privatise it?” he said, reflecting a widely held frustration.

Senegal’s Urbanisation Minister Abdou Karim Fofana said the government was working on a law to protect the coastline.

“We have to save the parts [of the coast] that aren’t occupied so that the Senegalese and Dakar population can access it,” Fofana said.

But land titles and building permits awarded under previous administrations mean that many ongoing building projects will likely go forward, he said.

Senegal is a poor nation of about 16 million people, where a push for economic development is going hand in hand with growing concern about environmental issues.

Marianne Alis Gomis, a local government official who is fighting shoreline build-up, said poor records explained Dakar’s construction free-for-all.

“The main problem is land title,” she said, explaining that little documentation concerning land ownership usually exists.

Local residents are adamant, however, that all building should stop. –

Dakar