Development controls in the Offinso South municipality, Ghana

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the system of development controls in the Offinso South municipality. It investigates the challenges to the development control regime. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the land use regulation system in the municipality. The municipality was clustered into four for data collection. Eight neighbourhoods (two from each cluster) were selected from the municipality for the study. In all, 15 properties were sampled via purposive sampling techniques from each of the selected neighbourhoods for data gathering. Self-administered questionnaires were relied on to gather data from the 120 respondents. The property owners were the unit of enquiry. Findings – The paper finds that socio-cultural factors, delays in the planning approval process, negative public perceptions about the planning process and planning officials, lack of official support to developers in curing identified defects in their proposed developments, and unrealistic building regulations are partly responsible for the large-scale violations of development controls in the municipality. Practical implications – It is noted that the planning authority should focus more on strategies that will facilitate voluntary compliance and less on enforcement. It also notes the need for a review of the building regulations and the purging of the planning system from negative public perceptions and processing delays. Originality/value – The paper identifies the constraints on the Ghanaian development controls regime.