Speed up new building laws

The Ministry of Housing and the State Law office are emerging as the missing link in the quest to grow home ownership in Kenya as they sit on laws aimed at reviewing the building code to appreciate low cost building materials.

The new laws, which were set for enactment by the end of last year, were geared at weaning the country from its ‘brick and mortar’ obsession and adopt prefabricated housing technology that is said to reduce the cost of construction by half.

At present, the high cost of construction, egged on by expensive land and building materials, has locked out the working class Kenyans from the home ownership bracket.

The bulk of Kenya’s working class who have relied on loans from their employee driven cooperative societies to acquire land and build homes are soon finding out that they are being priced out of the property market.

This has set the stage for the increase in rental prices as workers turn to landlords for refuge.

The Housing ministry and the State Law office should take part of the blame.

Last August, a committee of property experts embarked on journey to review the country’s building code that had been inherited from the British colony.

They finished their job last August and the market promised that the new set of laws would be in place by December—sending excitement across the property market.

Eight months on the laws are still gathering dust on the shelves in government offices as the country continues being gripped by a housing shortage and proliferation of slums .

This is unacceptable. Compared to conventional brick and mortar houses, real estate developers estimate that use of prefabricated panels also reduces the time needed to complete a housing unit to two months from the current average of six to nine months.

The panels also require less skilled labour compared to conventional blocks lowering the wage bill for individuals seeking to build own homes.

State-owned National Housing Corporation should be commended for rolling out plans to construct 15,000 units yearly from the low cost panel, but this policy shift will add little with archaic laws in place.

As result, we urge the government to speed up the implementation of these laws and ease the housing crisis.