How to house growing population and a planning vacuum

By FRANCIS AYIEKO

In its latest report, The Mortgage Company showed how desperately government intervention is needed to make mortgage a viable way of owning a home by Kenyans.

Two findings stood out in the report, released last week. One, the report said that just one per cent of Kenyans in urban areas can afford mortgage repayments for a Sh5.7 million house. For a Sh3.9 million house, only about four per cent urban dwellers can afford mortgage repayment.

Two, the report said that half of Kenyans in urban areas cannot not afford loan repayment for a Sh700,000 house.

The main reason the bulk of Kenyans cannot afford to buy Sh5.7 million house and a Sh3.9 million house is that interest rates are too high and housing prices are beyond the majority.

The report said that commercial banks have substantially maintained their unusually high borrowing rates for the first quarter of 2014, despite the growing impact on the housing market and on Kenya.

It noted that the lowest interest rate was 13.9 per cent rate, whereas the most expensive mortgages were offered at 19 per cent.

“With the mainstream lenders hanging on with such tenacity to such high margins on their lending, the delayed take-off in Kenya’s mortgage market is distorting the country’s housing range, discouraging private developers, and locking out all bar the elite from home ownership,” said Caroline Kariuki, the Managing Director of The Mortgage Company.

These are desperate calls that the government should work closely with industry players to address urgently.

HABITABLE

But even as we stress the need to help the majority of Kenyans own homes, we should not lose sight of important things that make a home — whether one’s own or rental — habitable.

At the weekend, I was shocked at what I saw when taking a short evening walk around my neighbourhood. First, I had not known that the area now has such a big population.

Less than ten years ago, the neighbourhood had a very small population that deserted the roads as early as 8 pm. From that time, it was relatively quiet until the following morning. The day was equally not very noisy.

But from the surging population I saw, the area now holds almost five times the number of people it used to hold about a decade ago. That is only to be expected.

Inevitably, this has led to an increase in construction activity, with apartment blocks coming up in every corner. There are about five new storey blocks of flats just about 150 metres away from where I stay.

However, what stands out is the haphazard manner in which the buildings have been put up.

In some areas, you find a three-storey building looking like it is sharing a wall with another squat building, for instance. Next to them are food kiosks built in no particular order

In some areas, the infrastructure is so poor, with raw sewage flowing in open sewers. People are just building.

QUESTION

The question then arises: Where are the authorities who should control housing development in this city? Why have we allowed chaos to be the new normal in most residential areas? Is the planning department of City Hall still functional?

From the look of things, this trend, which is rampant in most Nairobi middle-income neighbourhoods, will not end soon. Not unless someone steps up and does their job.

— fayieko@standardmedia.co.ke