Woodley market traders during a demonstration in the CBD. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU
Traders have vowed to block Nairobi county government plans to renovate Woodley market.
The market is part of a larger Woodley area earmarked for construction of 900 units of 15-storey flats.
Hundreds of traders on Wednesday held a demonstration in the Central Business District (CBD) to protest the panned construction fearing that the project was a guise to displace them and built houses where the market sits.
According to them, the county held a public participation meeting last week proposing the idea. They said they shot it down.
“We are here to give a petition to the county government stating that the market should not be converted into a residential area. A full council meeting declared it a market in 2009 and it will remain so,” Stanslus Alusiola, a trader at the market said.
In what was a well-orchestrated demo, traders wearing branded shirts and printed placards bearing the message that they will stay put, demanded an audience with the county leadership.
Deputy Governor Jonathan Mueke however assured the traders that the county would not touch the market.
Housing units
The county plans to build cheap houses on land it owns across Nairobi to bridge a housing deficit.
Nairobi county currently owns 17,000 housing units in areas just outside the CBD on prime land.
The county was expecting to complete financial negotiations by the end of the month to begin the first phase of 14,000 housing units at a cost of Sh40 billion.
The first phase is supposed to include new and old Ngara, Pangani, Jevanjee Bachelors, Uhuru and Woodley estate.
In Woodley, the traders were supposed to be moved to one area as City Hall builds them a new market.
According to plans shared with the Business Daily by the county executive for planning Tom Odongo, the market would have been built on the upper side of Woodley and houses on the extreme end, away from the waste generated from the market.
Implementation
The implementation of the much hyped urban renewal programme will depend on the successes of the first phase at Eastlands estates where residents have resisted plans to move them.
City Hall plans to setup over 100,000 housing units in the area to cater for the 650,000 people living in the area.
Eastlands estates owned by the county government have only 9,557 units on 2,000 acres of land with houses as old as 60 years in Kaloleni, Shauri Moyo, Makongeni, Ziwani and Pangani estates.
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