Tough new rules for property builders

Property developers are set to incur more costs as the government moves to restrict building approvals to only plans that have elaborate rainfall harvesting and water storage systems.

The move is the first step towards stemming the wastage of water during rainy seasons.

In a raft of measures aimed at addressing the country’s perennial water shortage under a rapidly changing climate, officials said all new buildings— both residential and commercial — will have to meet the new conservation standard to get official nod.

The government officials said the new building regulation will be propped up by Sh85 billion for building extra storage dams to be raised jointly with donors over the next 10 years.

Water ministry officials project that the joint campaign with their local government counterpart will increase the country’s per capita water storage from current five cubic metres to 80 cubic metres, beside expanding area under irrigated agriculture by 50,000 hectares.

“The local authorities will be required by the appropriate by-laws to enforce regulations because we have to buffer this country from the kind of water shortage witnessed last year,” said Mr David Stower, the Water Permanent Secretary.

The announcements to bolster water supply in the country was made at the fourth water sector conference held in Nairobi yesterday, the first major forum to bring together water sector stakeholders following acute water shortage that gripped the country last year, forcing service providers to adopt punitive rationing schedules that affected both domestic and industrial users.

Ironically, it was immediately after the prolonged drought of last year that excess water linked to El Nino phenomenon of December caused havoc in some parts of the country, sweeping away livestock and buildings in parts of the Rift valley, central, coast and Nyanza provinces.

On Thursday, experts were quick to dispel fears that new regulations could escalate building costs and cause fresh rallies in property prices saying property owners will only bear the cost of fixing simple equipment like gutters and simple tunnels that directs the water to government lines.

“We used to have these rules in 1980s and people implemented them throughout the country including rural homes and schools. To reduce cost, harvested water can be directed to government systems or stored in movable tanks for domestic use,” argues Mr Simon Mdondo, a structural engineer at the Kenya Water Institute.

At the same time, the government announced it has completed the process of interconnecting water supply systems in Nairobi in a move that will ensure that water from any part of the metropolis is available for all residents and commercial users.

While Nairobi and its environs get piped water from diverse sources such as Kikuyu springs, Thika dams, Ruiru boreholes and Ndakaini dam, it is often common to find one section of the city overflowing with water as the other experiences shortage because of different supply lines.

Water resource

“The idea is to ensure that at any time during the year, any available water resources are shared equally among all the residents and industries within a given geographical area,” said Mr Stower.

At the height of water crisis last year, an American company applied for a contract to supply Nairobi with adequate water for both domestic and industrial use.