Nairobi, Kiambu building plan approvals revenue drops on low construction activity

Arch. George Ndege president of The Architectural Association of Kenya(AAK), addressed the press on December 10th 2025 at Sarova Stanley Hotel in Nairobi, flanked by Arch. Brenda Nyawara vice president AAK, Eng. Nashon Tambo and others during the release of the status of the built report by The Architectural Association of Kenya(AAK).[Edward Kiplimo Standard].

Nairobi County recorded the lowest earnings from building plan approvals between January to October this year, underscoring reduced construction in the city.

This is according to the 2025 Status of the Built Environment (SBE) report released last week by the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) in Nairobi.

Between January and October 2025, the report says the county received 1,693 development approval applications, a four per cent decline from 1,761 in 2024 and continuing the downward trend from 1,827 in 2023.

The total project value of these developments stood at Sh187 billion, a 31 per cent decrease from Sh273 billion in 2024. Similarly, approval revenues fell to Sh1.13 billion, reflecting a Sh537 million decrease from the previous year, said the report in its ninth edition.

Of the 2025 applications, 94 per cent were approved, while six per cent were deferred or rejected. This is despite the National Construction Authority (NCA) registering 4,687 projects across the country during the period between January and October 2025, a 14 per cent increase from 4,124 in 2024.

Inflation rate

The majority of these were residential projects, accounting for 70 per cent, followed by commercial (16 per cent) and mixed-use (six), with a combined value of Sh358 million, representing a 16 per cent increase from the previous year.

The reduced construction activity in the sector is attributed to the elevated living costs, which placed increasing pressure on households.

Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) indicates that the year-on-year inflation rate has risen from 2.7 per cent in October 2024 to 3.3 per cent in January 2025, reaching 4.6 per cent by October 2025.

The Nairobi County government noted breaches of development control guidelines and recurring non-compliance issues during submissions, including failure to meet parking requirements, disregard for building lines and setbacks, inadequate window clearance and light penetration angles, non-compliance with minimum window-to-room-size ratios, and violations of zoning regulations and policies.

The report said respondents (who are AAK members) experience with the Nairobi Planning and Development Management System (NPDMS) indicated the average time to obtain approvals was 13.1 weeks, with approval durations ranging from two to 25 weeks.

The highest value of a pending project was Sh1 billion. AAK members cited several challenges in securing development permits in the county.

“Key issues included frequent downtime of the NPDMS system, limited access to information on requirements and application status, poor interdepartmental coordination, and entrenched corruption,” said the report.

“Requests for unofficial ‘facilitation’ were common, as was also noted in the 2024 SBE report, particularly at the initial submission stage. Some of the recommended actions included improving the NPDMS system and strengthening personnel’s technical capacity to enhance overall efficiency.”

Kisumu County received 203 development applications between January and October 2025, generating submission fees of Sh11.4 million,  reflecting a 24 per cent increase from the Sh9.2 million received in 2024. Of these applications, 81 per cent were approved while 19 per cent were deferred. There were no declined applications during this period. The majority of applications (110) were for residential developments, followed by commercial developments (33).

Kajiado County, which consists of three municipalities: Kajiado, Kitengela and Ngong,  AAK managed to obtain data only from Kitengela Municipality, where from January to November 2025, it received 499 development applications, generating a total of Sh41.7 million in submission fees.

During this period, 142 applications were approved, representing 28 per cent of the total submitted, with 1.8 per cent deferred. A total of 151 were processed, with 366 remaining pending. The Kajiado Electronic Development Application Management System (KeDAMS) experienced downtime earlier in the year, requiring applicants to manually resubmit their applications.

“This disruption significantly hampered service delivery and created uncertainty for applicants with pending submissions on the system, underscoring the importance of maintaining reliable digital systems, timely upgrades, and robust contingency plans to ensure continuity in e-permitting services,” said the report.

Residential projects

For Kiambu County, several AAK members submitted planning approvals, building permits, and structural engineering applications totalling 49 submissions. Residential projects formed the largest share of these applications at 53 per cent. However, compared to the same period in 2024, the proportion of residential projects declined in 2025, while commercial developments registered a notable increase.

The average time taken to obtain development approval across the sampled projects was approximately 9.1 weeks. The approval duration varied significantly, with the shortest processing time at just two weeks and the longest at 15 weeks. From January to October 2025, Machakos County received 1,946 development applications compared to the 490 applications submitted during the same period in 2024. Of these, 74 per cent were for building permits, with 26 per cent accounting for planning approvals. Among the six sub-counties, Mavoko accounted for the largest share at 49 per cent, followed by Matungulu at 21 per cent.

For Murang’a County, it received 452 applications, a slight increase from 437 in 2024. Of these, 211 were approved, while 241 were deferred or rejected.

According to the County Government, the high number of non-approvals stemmed from frequent breaches of development control guidelines, including non-compliance with setback requirements, plot ratios, and enforcement notices.

Commenting on the low revenue for Nairobi and other counties, AAK President George Ndege blamed it on the failure of counties to improve the operation of the online application systems.

“When it comes to development control, the main challenges are the inefficiencies and the permitting system, which is largely unrealised to the extent that 39 counties are still doing things manually. And the others, which have gone digital, are not efficient in a situation of a downturn in the system. So they are as good as manual,” said Ndege.

 “In Kiambu, it takes up to nine weeks to get to a goal.  It doesn’t matter whether the building project is a low-risk project like a single residential bungalow or it’s a complex project, but here is the catch: if you are able to do an ‘official facilitation’, you can take as little as two weeks. You can take even a year or more, of course, if you don’t know who to talk to. But the most important note about Kiambu is that they have reverted to a manual system, and they’re one of the first adopters of the digital system. And the reasons they gave were including that the system was hacked.”

Metropolitan counties of Kiambu, Nairobi, Machakos and Kajiado were the pilot counties for the Electronic Development Application Management System (EDAMS),  a project sponsored by the World Bank. Ndege said that as professionals in the built environment, they think that someone is intentionally switching off the system to frustrate developers and consultants, to facilitate the fast tracking of the same.

Despite legal requirements under the Urban Areas and Cities Act (2011), the County Governments Act (2012), and the Physical and Land Use Planning Act (2019), no county has fully developed and enacted the complete set of statutory plans envisioned in the planning framework.

For instance, only 19 counties have gazetted County Spatial Plans(CSP), an increase of three from last year, including  Baringo, Busia, and Elgeyo Marakwet counties that were gazetted in 2025, with 39 counties still processing development applications manually.

Just 202 of the 2,636 urban centres are adequately planned. “Development control remains a persistent challenge in Kenyan urban areas, with approval processes continuing to frustrate professionals in the built environment,” said Ndege. On buildings and safety, in 2025, the National Building Inspectorate (NBI) audited 396 buildings across the country – a sharp decline from the 20,649 developments inspected in 2024, which Ndege attributed to be lack of enough personnel to do the work. Despite this, 87 per cent of the audited developments still failed to comply with building standards or lacked requisite approvals. In 2024, 4.7 per cent of these buildings were classified as dangerous, 56.5 per cent as unsafe, and one per cent as having structural integrity issues.

According to the NIB, about 80 per cent of construction activity occurs without the involvement of registered professionals, suggesting that non-compliance remains widespread.

“This underscores systemic weaknesses in development control and highlights the urgent need for stronger regulatory oversight, increased participation of licensed built-environment professionals, and the adoption of a one-stop shop system for county-level permitting to safeguard public safety and improve construction quality,” said Ndege.

The National Construction Authority issued 13,348 suspension-of-work notices in 2025. Additionally, 24 per cent (1,125) of applications for project registration were rejected, while 4,687 were approved as compliant.

Two buildings were decommissioned in 2025, including an 11-storey structure in Mombasa, demolished by the Kenya Defence Forces on April 9, following insufficient geotechnical surveys, unsupervised construction, and an unapproved borehole, and structural failure caused by the drilling of an unapproved borehole.

Six building collapses were recorded across Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisii counties, alongside several boundary-wall and slab collapses at active construction sites. In Nairobi, two collapses occurred in the Parklands area, resulting in fatalities. The cost of construction in 2025 continued to experience moderate shifts in material and operational costs, driven by local economic conditions, fuel price movements.