Government spokesman Alfred Mutua may have faith in the uplifting powers of beautification, but the reality in Nairobi, East Africa’s business hub, is different. Paul Agonda and Rachel Keeler have a look at whether construction has kept pace with the economic expansion of the past years.
The political transition in 2002 ended the sclerosis of the last years of the Moi administration and created space for reforms. Local business responded well, and GDP growth accelerated to a good 7% in 2007, before the economy was hit by the double impact of the post-election violence and the global financial crisis. Much of this economic expansion centered on Nairobi, Kenya’s capital and still the regional hub for business. With a current growth rate of at least 7%, nearly three times the national population growth rate of 2.75%, the City Council estimates Nairobi could become a mega-city of 15m people by 2020. An unprecedented economic boom and burst of middle class-fueled business expansion has pushed demand for housing, land, better office space and workable roads, water, power and communications infrastructure so high, so quickly that the city has literally been stumbling over itself to catch up: Today the capital has become notorious not just for crime, but also for traffic jams, power outages, water rationing and urban sprawl.
Random Residential Construction
According to Professor Washington Olima, a lecturer at the University of Nairobi’s Real Estate and Construction Department, almost three quarters of city development is unplanned today. Evidence of this abounds, in neighborhoods where chaotic housing patterns no longer bear evidence of their original zoning or any kind of pragmatic planning. Slums have invaded affluent neighborhoods such as Lavington, while kiosks have surrounded once orderly business establishments, driving property prices down. Developments such as Kayole Estate may have been zoned for three-floor apartment buildings, but have blocks with seven floors and more, and without elevators as the law prescribes. Kenya Alliance of Resident Associations (KARA) CEO Stephen Mutoro also points to Kaloleni Estate in Eastlands that, he says, if proper high-rise buildings were constructed in the estate, it could comfortably house millions of residents. Nairobi’s notorious Kibera slum, home to an estimated 700,000 people, could also accommodate up to 2.1m if similar flats were put up. Kibera residents instead live in overpriced one-story shacks and ramshackle building blocks with limited access to often illegal utilities.
According to Kenya’s Physical Planning Act, the City Council is mandated to regulate construction in Nairobi. However, there are other authorities including the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), Ministry of Lands, and the Director of Survey who contribute to development planning guidelines. Legally, the council must review all developers’ submissions and make approvals based on current zoning laws before any construction can happen. The council is later required to inspect and approve every stage of the project. David K. Gatimu, an urban planner with the city council, says that until the last inspection is done and the developer issued with a certificate, the property should not be legitimately opened. This elaborate process contrasts sharply with the haphazard developments around the city. Gatimu admits that in the past, most unplanned developments were due to lack of manpower within the council. Recently the city council has recruited more officers to address the problem, although the staff is still short and technical capacity and corruption remain substantial concerns.
"We've had very good planning laws in Kenya for many years. That has not stopped the bureaucrats from not doing the right thing," says Maina Mwangi, head of Knight Frank’s property management department in Nairobi. Mwangi says the city has actually been zoned very well. The industrial area appointed outside of the central business district continues to serve its function today. But residential areas have been overrun by expanding commercial needs, with offices sprouting up in areas not originally zoned for or capable of supporting high density occupancy. Approval for this change of use has been random. Mwangi says the City Council has a lot of leeway, which it does not hesitate to use, to deny what should be approved and conversely to approve what should be denied. For example, one of Nairobi’s newer and fastest growing neighborhoods, Kilimani, was zoned for single dwelling housing, but Mwangi says approval for high density use by offices there was given without proper planning considerations.
More Regulations, and More Vested Interests?
The council is attempting to institute some reform, and says it has given access to its top management to any person with a complaint. Authorities have also begun counter checking all approvals. A few officers have been dismissed from the council after being found guilty of illegal conduct. The council has also begun programmes to train developers on construction procedures, and runs an enforcement department tasked with demolishing illegitimate buildings. According to the department, there are over 100 haphazard developments that have been marked for demolition, with 38 torn down so far. However, vested interests, whether political or personal, continue to drive much of the council’s work. John Barreh, an assistant director in the department of urban planning, says there are a number of council officers who will take bribes from developers in exchange for promises of project approval. He says many developers have lost their money and many cases of corruption are reported every day. For political reasons, city councilors also prefer not to displace their constituents from their homes, regardless of whether those homes meet planning and construction standards.
This indicates flaws in how Nairobi is being run: Robert Bunyi, Managing Director of Mavuno Capital, says the government needs to change the way councils are elected and held accountable. Today, local councilors are nominated rather than democratically elected, and answer to the local government minister instead of the mayor. Bunyi would like to see that hierarchy change, and have local politics de-linked from national elections so that voters will take more time to consider local issues such as city planning, which often affect their lives more than national level politics. Professor Olima agrees with this, noting that according to the fiscal budget, much funding is earmarked for distribution to the constituencies, and local leaders are responsible to use that money for local development.
Prospects
Nairobi’s slapdash growth has put a tremendous strain on road networks and the distribution of amenities. The city is essentially still operating on a 1970s infrastructural backbone: Areas like Westlands that were designed for low density residential use have small water pipes unsuited for high-density commercial demand – adding to the problems of water shortages caused by repeat droughts. Similarly, the power supply distribution network has received some upgrading, but not enough to meet high density demand from the many offices in Westlands, Upper Hill and the city centre that are now experiencing regular power cuts.
Nairobi has seen only two master plans for urban development in the last half century. The first came in 1948, and a second in 1973, from which the city is still operating – if 75% unplanned development can be called operational. The 1973 plan was written for a city of 3.5m people. Today, Nairobi has grown to more than 5m. Officials have been attempting to develop a new plan since 2000, but there have been repeat delays as government did not drive the process. Barreh believes that recently more emphasis has been placed by the government on the importance of a new plan, and that one will soon be in place. But Knight Frank’s Mwangi says the review process is not proceeding productively, and authorities are noticeably short on good new ideas. Nothing has actually been planned in Nairobi for quite some time, as urban planners here have been almost entirely reactive rather than proactive since the latest growth spurt began.
City planning is probably the biggest challenge going forward for the property market in Kenya. No coherent plans have been made for how to develop the greater Nairobi metropolitan area as the city rapidly expands. Whether the newly created Ministry for Nairobi Metropolitan will make any significant difference in the medium term future is still not clear. The first minister, Mutula Kilonzo, spoke grandly of his visions and ambitions for the city, including CCTV coverage to improve security, pedestrianising the Central Business District (CBD) in four rather than six months, cleaning up the Nairobi River so that he would swim in it a year after taking on the ministry. But not just the swim is still outstanding after he was transferred to the Ministry of Justice. Efforts to limit traffic into downtown Nairobi by allowing only two bus firms to enter the CBD appeared driven by vested interests since there had been no transparent process to select the two companies. Although it does make sense, in principle, to focus energies on Nairobi as the domestic and regional business hub, the creation of this new ministry was driven probably more by the political to increase the number of ministries, and so far, despite the publication of glossy plans for flyovers and skyscrapers, little has happened, and Nairobians still waste hours and hours in traffic.
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