Evaluation of spatial changes in the local development plan of debri-dingur area Mekelle City, Tigrai, Ethiopia

Urban spatial expansion is very common and principally increasing in fast economic growing developing countries. Ethiopia is not only least urbanized, but also most urban areas in the country are predominantly unplanned. Currently, Ethiopian cities are experiencing unprecedented growth and Mekelle a regional capital city of Tigrai province is one of the fast growing city which engulfing the nearby suburbanized fringe kebelles like Debri-Dingur area. The objective of this paper is to assess and evaluate the spatial changes in the newly developed local development plan (LDP) of Debri-Dingur area in Mekelle city. The main research method applied here is qualitative, quantitative analysis besides spatial analysis was done using aerial photo and GIS computation and field observations, survey, questionnaires and interview was done to collect the primary and secondary data from dwellers and different relevant sources. The results indicate that in Debri-Dingur area urbanization is growing in population, lack regularization, poor infrastructure development and unplanned squatter housing construction as a leap-frog is common, unless the newly developed LDP is implemented in a revised way as fast as possible. The local development plan (LDP) has recommended a fancy spatial neighborhood design with higher land use coverage of mixed residence, excluding pure residence areas, though economically unfeasible to the local administration and the dwellers unless it is implementation in phase based approach with pure residence as an alternative land use and also the proposed and implemented spatial coverage has discrepancy with the main structure plan of Mekelle city.