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Sakaja unveils plans to build 40,000 affordable rental houses in Nairobi


Nairobi County Governor Johnson Sakaja on Tuesday opened the pre-bidders conference for the county’s Urban Renewal Affordable housing program.

Speaking when he met the bidders at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) the Governor said that the county is redeveloping nine county estates, namely Bahati, Maringo, Jericho, Lumumba, Ziwani, Bondeni, Kariobangi, Embakasi and Woodley.

The estates will create 40,000 housing units for the residents, a move that the governor said will reduce the shortage of affordable rental houses in the city.

“Nairobi’s population has grown over the years thus increasing the demand for housing. We have a shortage. More so a good percent of the residents of this city are unemployed or low-income earners and thus cannot access decent affordable housing,” Governor Sakaja said.

The governor said during the meeting that the urban renewal program is anchored on the Nairobi Integrated Urban Development Master Plan (NIUPLAN), which identified the redevelopment of Eastland as one of the nodes within the city that would promote development and enable city residents to live and work there.

“Each project will entail 70 percent affordable housing units to be sold at a cost of between Sh1.5 million and Sh3.5 million. The other 30 percent will be developed to target middle and higher-income households.”

The governor said that the plan was supported by JICA, and it is now time to bring it to life.

He said that at the moment, the county has only 16,453 social housing units spread over thirty-two (32 No.) estates.

“With the current state of poor housing and high levels of urbanization, we are in dire need of increasing the housing stock, especially for low and middle-income households.”

The county will work closely with the national government to ensure the program becomes successful, unlike the initial plan which was launched in 2015/2016, where it targeted eight projects but only managed to complete two projects.
The governor said that his administration is working on solving the problems related to lands on which the projects were supposed to be built.

“The delay of the other projects in Suna Road, Ngong Road Phase 1 and 2, Uhuru, Old Ngara and New Ngara has been due to various reasons including the lack of land documentation and developers not taking possession. This is being addressed and we will ensure that these documents are availed in time to support timely project implementation in this new phase.”
In his second phase plan, the Bahati estate will get 9,000 units, Maringo 4,000 units, Jericho 6,000, Lumumba 4,000, Ziwani 2,500, Bondeni 700, Kariobangi North 2,000, Embakasi 2,500, and Woodley will get 3,400 units.

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