Victoria Garden City (VGC)

In our view, VGC is the most structurally sound and infrastructurally advanced estate in Lagos. It was planned as a whole city before anything was built. HFP Engineering laid it out in the early 1990s on about 200 hectares at Ikota, off the Lekki–Epe Expressway, and three decades on it shows:

• wide, tree-lined boulevards and underground drainage
• its own water company, VMMCL, with three underground sources and two treatment plants supplying Phases 1 to 3 around the clock
• controlled gates, CCTV and armed patrols
• one body running the estate: VGCPORA, the owners' and residents' association

VGC has several parks and open spaces. Schools, a recreation club and a shopping mall are all inside the gates.

What holds VGC back lies outside its gates.

1. One way in. Almost every trip to and from VGC runs along the Lekki–Epe Expressway. The Lekki Regional Road was designed to change that: 8.75 km from VGC to Freedom Way in Lekki Phase 1, through Ikota, Chevron and Ikate–Elegushi, including a 500-metre bridge. It would also open up the lagoon shore VGC sits on. We add our voice to the call for Lagos State to complete it. Section 1 of the coastal highway, from Victoria Island to the Lekki Deep Sea Port, now gives the peninsula a second east–west route. The Regional Road is the missing piece that would show VGC for what it truly is: a city on the lagoon.

2. Planning along the whole peninsula. From the Nigerian Law School on Victoria Island east to Epe, the Lekki peninsula is one strip of land between the lagoon and the Atlantic. It already has a master plan. What it needs is for that plan to be enforced:

• setbacks and drainage that stop the flooding
• public access to both waterfronts
• zoning that matches building density to the roads
• a mass-transit line running the full length

That is how comparable coastlines became world-class:

• Gold Coast, Australia: a coastal strip between the Pacific and the Broadwater, joined by one planned corridor and the G:link light rail running along it.
• Miami Beach, USA: a barrier island between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic, reached by several causeways rather than a single road.
• Dubai: a coast developed along the Sheikh Zayed Road, with the Metro Red Line running beside it and districts built to a master plan.
• Singapore: a shoreline reclaimed and developed under a national master plan that is reviewed every five years.

Lekki has the land, water on both sides and, now, the roads. Planning is what turns that into a world-class peninsula, and VGC shows what planning can do.

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Properties in Victoria Garden City (VGC)

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Lekki Regional Road (under construction)

An 8.75 km road from Victoria Garden City to Freedom Way in Lekki Phase 1, through Ikota, Chevron and Ikate–Elegushi, with a 500-metre bridge — built as an alternative to the Lekki–Epe Expressway.