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Nairobi’s Jevanjee estate to make way for 3,000 apartments

ngara

A Nairobi County housing development. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Nairobi’s Jevanjee and Bachelors estates, which house 80 tenants, are to be demolished to pave the way for construction of 3,000 housing units in the next two years.

The development will see tenants receive Sh600,000 each for alternative accommodation to allow the contractor take possession of the land for re-development. Nairobi County government finance executive Pauline Kahiga said cheques will be ready next week when partnership agreements will be signed, including a tenant purchase agreement for the new apartments.

Each tenant will get a three-bedroomed apartment worth Sh3 million repayable in the next 30 years.

“The partnership deals guarantee that each tenant will get priority when the new houses are allocated to new tenants where each will pay a negotiated Sh8,000 monthly rentt within the next 30 years.

“We will proceed with the due process of issuing a 30-day vacation notice to the tenants to allow the contractors launch construction soon,” said CEC Kiragu. Early this year, 48 tenants of Old Pangani estate were enrolled into the compensation-cum regeneration programme to pave the way for 1,434 residential units.

Other projects under way include the 1,588 housing units at Pangani, Ngara’s Park Road estate and the planned 3,000 high-rise apartments on Nairobi’s Ngong Road on a 5.058-hectare parcel. The Ngong Road project is the second development fronted by the government after it launched the 1,370 units Park Road development being built by China State Construction Engineering under a design, build and finance on a 7.9-acre plot. Nairobi County government’s model affirms a new government-tenant strategy that eliminates litigation and fast-track demolition of old council houses freeing the land for redevelopment of high-rise residential houses.

The project launched three years ago has seen county governments identify 7,000 acres countrywide for the affordable housing projects that will be funded by the government where tenants will buy the houses on a rent-to-own facility.