City Hall housing permit delays cut deals to Sh207bn

The value of approved housing projects in Nairobi fell by Sh3 billion last year due to permit issuance delays by City Hall.

The Economic Survey 2020 shows that the number of registered building projects shrunk to Sh207.6 billion last year from Sh210 billion in 2018.

This comes after the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) early this year blamed delays on the suspension of City Hall’s technical planning committee and e-permit downtime in the second half of 2019.

“In 2019, the value of building works completed, both public and private-went up from Sh91.6 billion in 2018 to Sh95.5 billion last year,” the report shows.

Private residential (Sh80.4 billion) took a huge chunk of the completed projects.

“Value of completed private residential buildings rose from Sh77.7 billion in 2018 to Sh80.4 billion last year with non-residential buildings growing by Sh1.2 billion to Sh13.6 billion last year,” the report states.

The value of public buildings completed dropped from Sh1.6 billion in 2018 to Sh1.5 billion last year.

The e-permit system was developed in 2011 jointly by the county governments, the International Finance Corporation and the AAK to enhance efficiency and accountability in the processing of construction permits in the city.