For owners of old buildings along Kampala’s major streets, an “X” painted on the property could soon carry an unsettling message: the government believes the building no longer belongs in the city it wants Kampala to become.
State Minister for Lands, Housing and Urban Development Princess Persis Namuganza says the government plans to identify buildings that have “outlived their usefulness” as part of a wider push to enforce physical planning standards and reshape Uganda’s urban centres.
“We are no longer going to spare any house in the city or town, starting with those whose time has passed,” Namuganza said.
The exercise will start in Kampala before extending to other cities and municipalities, according to the minister, potentially placing owners of older properties at the centre of a difficult debate over redevelopment, property rights and what Uganda’s rapidly changing cities should look like.
Namuganza made the remarks at the Uganda Media Centre in Kampala ahead of the second Uganda Real Estate and Housing Expo. She said the government was implementing the national physical planning and physical development plan to guide how land, buildings and human settlements develop across the country.
The government wants to move away from urban development in which buildings emerge with little regard for surrounding infrastructure, access and the wider layout of an area.
“We are no longer going to allow houses to be constructed so close to one another, leaving only a narrow gap in between,” Namuganza said.
Buildings along major streets that authorities believe do not fit the planned character of cities and towns will also attract scrutiny.
“All such houses will be marked ‘X’,” she said. What happens after that mark is placed on a building, however, could matter enormously to property owners. Under the Building Control Act, Cap. 136, as amended by the Building Control (Amendment) Act, 2026, however, the legal framework for dealing with buildings that have effectively outlived their usefulness is based on their condition, safety and compliance with building requirements, rather than age alone.
Section 41 of the Act provides that where a building is in a state of disrepair or is dilapidated, or shows signs of disrepair or dilapidation, a Building Committee may issue a written notice requiring the owner to demolish the building or take remedial action to a standard determined by the committee.
The 2026 amendment further empowers Building Committees, under section 28A, to demolish or order the evacuation of buildings constructed in contravention of the Act or conditions prescribed by the minister through regulations.
The amendment also expands the powers of the National Building Review Board to issue stop or evacuation orders where safety is compromised and a Building Committee fails to act.
The minister said owners who need to redevelop their properties but cannot afford to do so would have an opportunity to work with government through publicprivate partnerships.
“If their owners do not have money to redevelop them, we have opened a desk in the ministry. Come and partner with us through public-private partnerships so that we can develop them together,” Namuganza said.
Under such arrangements, she said, the government and property owners could share units in the redeveloped property or agree on another way to meet redevelopment costs.
“Government can also buy off such land,” she said.
The announcement raises a larger question confronting Kampala: how do you modernize a heavily built-up city without unfairly punishing people who already own property there? Some real estate developers are already urging caution.
Yasin Bakaluba warned that targeting existing properties could hurt their owners without necessarily solving the deeper problems of congestion and poor planning. Instead of repeatedly trying to remodel Kampala, he suggested the government could establish properly planned urban areas elsewhere, where roads, buildings and other infrastructure could be designed together from the beginning.
“Why can’t they just sit, get a place like Nakasongola, get a place like Luwero and start afresh? Where you bring in new engineers, and you make the rules so strict. What is so hard there?” Bakaluba asked.
His argument is that Kampala’s problems are partly inherited. Much of the city has already been developed, often without the orderly planning that government now wants to enforce.
Making major changes today could therefore mean interfering with properties that have stood for years. Another developer, Charles Mwesige, warned against treating every old building as a problem. Some properties, he said, carry architectural or historical value and should be preserved even when redevelopment becomes necessary.
“There are those monumental properties that could never be demolished at all. Instead, they should be redesigned, but without losing the architectural design,” Mwesige said.
He argues that redevelopment depends on laws and planning decisions that can distinguish between different types of property.
“It is good to develop the city. It is, if you have the right laws and if you really put into consideration the different properties we are talking about,” he said.
The debate comes as government prepares to implement the Uganda Cities and Municipal Infrastructure Development Programme, or UCMID, a wider programme intended to support improvements in cities, municipalities and other participating local governments.
Government says physical development plans are among the conditions participating local governments must meet. Namuganza also said the ministry would conduct free land and title searches as part of implementing the national housing policy.
The immediate question for property owners, however, is what government’s proposed redevelopment drive will mean in practice. Namuganza, however, did not specify when buildings will begin to be marked, the criteria authorities will use to decide that a building has outlived its usefulness, what formal notice owners will receive, or what avenues will exist for someone who contests the decision.
Those details will determine whether the plan becomes an orderly redevelopment programme or a source of disputes between government and property owners. Kampala may need modernization.
But as government moves from planning documents to individual buildings, the harder question will be not simply what the new city should look like, but what happens to the people and properties already occupying the old one.