As we get into 2016, Kenya continues to suffer an acute shortage of decent urban housing. New housing units continue to fall far below the annual projection of 150, 000 required to bridge our national deficit. The persistent deficit has seen local entrepreneurs devise innovative models to cash in. Sadly, some of the models are unsuitable for the long term and sustainable development of our urban areas. Unless regulated, these models will be the bane of our urban life in future.

Poor service infrastructure

Kenyans who have travelled widely around the country will attest to scores of new developments around the peripheral rim of most of our urban centers. A careful look will reveal major gaps in infrastructural services particularly roads and sewer lines. In most cases, residents struggle to seal the gaps by pooling together resources to improve the access roads around them. But the quality of such improvements is usually wanting due to limitations spelt by the high costs of materials and lack of expert input. One may therefore have witnessed residents from such zones stuck in short sections of peri-urban access roads for hours. Pedestrians have difficulties walking the usually narrow and muddy roads. During the dry season, the same roads get dusty and inconvenient to walk while homesteads near them have difficulties withstanding and managing the dust. Undeveloped sections remain unlit and dark at night, adding to neighbourhood insecurity.

It’s worse for sewer services. Since these are unavailable in most such areas, residents will make do with pit latrines or septic tanks which require periodic attention. Poor management of these facilities leads to the pollution of the micro-climate in the neighbourhoods. When there is flooding during heavy rains, some of the facilities give in, posing threats of water borne diseases to dwellers. This is certainly not the quality of urban life anyone wants. And we shouldn’t stand by to watch such lifestyles escalated on account of poor planning and lack of development regulation. But how did we ever get here?

Proliferation of unplanned neighbourhoods

From a while back some individuals, corporates, Sacco Societies and land buying companies noticed that urban residents, faced by unaffordable housing units in the formal estates, were ready to buy any available unit of land then self-develop for occupation or rental returns. Land would therefore be identified and purchased around the urban peripheries and quickly subdivided into small plots and sold out. Examples are many around Nairobi, Thika, Nakuru, Eldoret and Kisumu. Many smaller urban centers suffer the problem too. In a number of cases, this has been successfully done and helped to improve housing. In many, the result has been unsatisfactory.

The challenge arises once the new land owners move subdivisions that don’t go through routine formalities. This could include providing plot sizes out of conformity with the immediate neighbourhood; usually too small. In other cases, title deeds are issued without obliging the original owner to extend roads, water and power to the new subplots as used to happen earlier. This then leaves plot buyers to mind such utilities on their own. Furthermore, in trying to draw maximum returns, some of the developers provide very narrow internal access roads, leaving residents to contend with a future where two vehicles from different directions are never able to effectively negotiate. Delivery of domestic items or construction materials by wide axle vehicles subsequently gets severely strained and security of motorists at night is put to risk. And the problems discussed above play out with great frustration.

Gated community model

If kept affordable, the gated community model is a welcome exception. It provides comprehensive physical infrastructure, including security, to the enclosed units and needs to be encouraged. Challenges arise though where these are located way beyond the nearest tarmac roads, leaving the gated community to access units through rough roads. This could however be bridged by improving the main access road and apportioning costs to individual units. And government should be sought to complement.

Governments must regulate subdivisions and construction

If we’ve to reverse this trend, the national and county governments will have to step in and carefully regulate subdivision and construction proposals in the urban peripheries. Construction of standard roads, provision of water and power must be ensured. Standard road widths should be enforced. But government should ensure the provision of critical infrastructure such as trunk roads to the peri-urban zones, power voltage step-down transformers and sewer lines. And big schemes aimed at providing village-like clusters of small non-viable quarter acre size plots, or less, deep in our rural areas, must be discouraged.