Lagos Island regeneration plan turns to pooled family land and 12-storey buildings
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Lagos State says it is considering a model that would let up to three families pool property and build up to 12 floors under government guidance, as it moves from preparing the Lagos Island Model City Plan to implementing it.
Stakeholders have urged the Lagos State government to move from planning to practical implementation of the Lagos Island Model City Plan, at a meeting between the Lagos Heritage Group and the state Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development. The group said implementation would help protect the area's historical and architectural heritage.
The state commissioner for physical planning and urban development, Olunuyi Olumide, said the plan had been completed and that the next major task was creating awareness and securing stakeholder participation. He said the government was considering a development model that would encourage three families to pool property and develop a building of up to 12 floors under government guidance, and a central sewage system for Lagos Island because the area is already saturated and lacks space for soakaways.
Olumide said about 3,700 hectares of road setbacks had been identified as needing attention, with commercial operators increasingly occupying them, and that buildings should be raised about 900 millimetres above existing road levels to prevent flooding. On abandoned buildings, he said evacuating occupants is not always straightforward because some properties are tied up in legal disputes. Lagos, with an estimated population above 30 million, is under significant pressure on its limited land area, he added.
The vice chairman of Lagos Island Local Government, Babatunde Aro-Folami, said preparing a plan is important but implementing it would be difficult without addressing congestion, uncontrolled commercial activity and long-term leases on private property. He said some families the government hopes to engage have leased property to developers for up to 30 years, and raised concern that government-owned property on the Tinubu and Tom Jones axes had been handed to private developers building mainly for profit.
Yemisi Ransome-Kuti, head of the Ransome-Kuti family and convener of the Lagos Heritage Group, recalled an April 2025 meeting at which action points including abandoned buildings and miscreant occupation were identified, and called for quarterly meetings with a designated official. Former state commissioner Francisco Abosede called for drainage problems around Jankara Market and adjoining streets to be resolved before further land reclamation or sand-filling. The Erelu-Odua of Lagos, Abiola Dosunmu-Kuti, urged families to pool land rather than pursue individual interests and offered two or three family properties for a possible showpiece project.