WestProp breaks ground on 5,000-hectare Chivhu EcoCity targeting 20,000 homes
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Zimbabwean developer WestProp Holdings has begun civil works on Chivhu EcoCity, a 5,000-hectare mixed-use development planned for 20,000 homes and up to 80,000 residents.
WestProp Holdings has broken ground on Chivhu EcoCity, a 5,000-hectare mixed-use development about 145 kilometres south of Harare on the Masvingo road, planned for 20,000 homes and as many as 80,000 residents.
Construction has started on Founders Estate, the first phase, comprising about 600 residential stands that the company says have already sold out. Founder and chief executive Ken Sharpe said the people who bought into that phase did very well, and that prices rise from October 1.
Under the group's model, WestProp sells serviced stands before the infrastructure exists, uses the proceeds to build the roads, water and sewer networks, and raises prices as each phase de-risks the next. Chivhu is currently a farming town of a few thousand people; at 80,000 residents it would become one of the larger settlements in Zimbabwe.
Sharpe said WestProp is building the first eco-city and the first green city in the country. The plan includes a game reserve inside the development, the existing weirs and water bodies turned into an ecotourism offering, and at least 20 schools. Projects manager Mandla Ndebele said the immediate job is unlocking the site with roads, water and sewer networks that everything else depends on, and that the water features are meant to carry real tourism interest rather than serve as landscaping.
The development is mixed use, combining residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural components, giving WestProp several revenue lines to unlock at different times rather than depending on house sales alone. Shadreck Maoneni, district planner at Chikomba Rural District Council, said the project would put Chivhu on a pedestal and was top notch and a first of its kind.
WestProp's existing portfolio includes the Pokugara residential estate, the roughly 1,000-unit Millennium Heights apartment complex, Pomona City on 270 hectares, the Mall of Zimbabwe, The Hives and a golf estate at Warren Park. The company listed on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange in April 2023, the first property company to trade on the dollar-denominated bourse.