Building to the skies, but at what cost?

If you ask Prof Alfred Omenya, a sustainability architect, there are remnants of Nimrod still residing in the city.

Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has told off the Kilimani, Kileleshwa and Lavington residents who are alarmed by the mushrooming of high-rise buildings within their neighbourhood and lowering the quality of their lives. "Stop complaining," Sakaja told them.

"The height restrictions have been removed in the city. We will build up to 25 floors."

According to Sakaja, city boundaries have remained the same. At the same time, the population keeps growing, necessitating the need to review the height restrictions in several city suburbs that initially only allowed for single-dwelling structures.

"Nairobi is 696 square kilometres. In 2050, Nairobi will have a population of 10.5 million people. Are we going to expand the boundaries? No. The only way to go is up."

In fact, if the Development Control Zoning Framework before the Nairobi County Assembly sails through, certain Nairobi areas will have structures up to 75 floors.

A view of GTC Tower in Westland. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Professionals are available to guide this process and start off on already organised neighbourhoods to pilot local physical development plans and bring back order to our city.

"While we support densification and development towards a compact city, the issue of number of floors needs to be supported by improved infrastructure such as sewer and water reticulation, improved roads to include a metropolitan transport system, designated public parks and open areas," stated AAK President Florence Nyole in a statement.

"All these should be led by the citizens of Nairobi through a public participatory exercise that develops local physical development plans. These plans will allocate appropriate uses to the land and define the ordinances that are acceptable to the public and that will grow organically alongside the infrastructure as it improves."

The organisation cites a lack of public participation as an impediment to a properly organised city. This, AAK says, should include integrating the Nairobi Integrated Urban Development Master Plan (NIUPLAN) of 2015 into neighbourhood plans and making solid progress to improve infrastructure through a master plan in collaboration with national government agencies.

"As we speak, the Sessional Paper No. 3 of 2023 on the Development Control Policy is devoid of public participation. We as professionals have shared comments and reviewed the document since 2021, but so far, none of our submissions has been put into consideration," says Ms Nyole.

In Nairobi, Prof Omenya says all the governor has done through his pronouncement is open up the remaining land for speculation "to the point where we cannot afford to set aside land to bury Nairobians when they die".

For example, Prof Omenya says a decade ago, an acre of land in Kilimani went for Sh40 million but is today selling for Sh400 million. To recoup land and construction expenses and still make a profit out of 40 units, a developer will have to sell a unit for Sh15 million or more.

"How many can afford that? First, the governor has pushed up land prices through rezoning. Next, developers will put up apartments on the rezoned land that become unaffordable for intended residents, and the cycle continues. So, the high-rise buildings will perpetuate the same problems they are supposed to solve," says Omenya.

Lawyer Donald Kipkorir says: "Converting Nairobi City into a slum is now official policy, we are witnessing the end of Nairobi as a great city. In a few years, Nairobi will be a big slum city like Kinshasa or Mogadishu. UNEP will pull out of Nairobi. Embassies based here that cover East and Central Africa will relocate to Kigali. It is truly sad how political excitement makes politicians destroy a city and country. What a sad epitaph to Nairobi."