Multi-stakeholder involvement in urban land use planning in the Ejisu Municipality, Ghana: An application of the social complexities’ theory

Like many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana’s urban land use planning is fraught with complex socio-cultural, economic and political factors. Till date, land use planning remains a key challenge for managing urban growth and city governance. The complexities involved in land use planning in most developing countries and Ghana in particular, have been attributed to the dual system of land management and delivery. Using semi-structured interviews and data obtained from 294 homeowners as well as representatives of relevant institutions responsible for land use planning, this paper adopts the social complexities theory as a lens to understand the dynamism and complexity of stakeholder involvement in the land use planning process and the implications toward sustainable city development in Ghana, using Ejisu Municipality as a case study. The paper reveals that most homeowners indicated that the land use planning process did not allow inputs from identifiable groups and where inputs were solicited, it was largely expert-driven. The paper further reveals that in addition to the universally documented factors of non-compliance to land use planning in developing countries, the failure to adhere to the tenets of the social complexity theory also contributed to non-compliance. It is therefore imperative for land use planners to address the limited inclusion of the tenets of complexity in the environment within which land use planning takes place. The paper recommends that the absence or limited involvement of the ultimate beneficiaries in the land use planning process should be avoided since it inhibits efforts to attain inclusive city development.