EDITORIAL: Hasten housing approvals

Workers at a construction site in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | NMG

What you need to know:

  • Nairobi ought to assess the situation and get the facts and figures of the seemingly low registrations for construction projects.

According to the National Construction Authority, the number of project submissions in 2018/9 hit 5,156, of which 604 were registered in Nairobi. It was followed closely by Kajiado at 572. This could be in line with the preference for areas away from Nairobi due to many woes in the city, including congestion, poor service delivery, pollution, poor drainage or bureaucracy in licensing the projects.

Among other benefits, this ‘migration’ could be one of the natural ways of dealing with the increasing population challenge in Nairobi with many warnings that the capital city was increasingly under pressure.

However, Nairobi ought to assess the situation and get the facts and figures of the seemingly low registrations for construction projects known to create and sustain many jobs.

Any gaps tied to this development in Nairobi should be corrected as urgently as possible because apart from the jobs, the capital city is in dire need of housing, what with the many slums that show a huge demand for decent housing.

Should it be that property developers are avoiding Nairobi, the city fathers ought to nip that migration in the bud by revising policies to sell the city to these investors.

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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.