The long-awaited redevelopment of Pangani Estate is set to kick off next month after almost three months since the Nairobi County government demolished the estate and evicted tenants.
A bid by the tenants to stop the demolitions failed after a Nairobi court declined to stop the exercise, dismissing a case filed by the residents for lack of prosecution by the complainants’ lawyer.
GROUNDBREAKING
City Hall Lands and Housing executive Winfred Gathagu on Thursday said that currently the debris that was left behind following the flattening of the blocks are being cleared.
She said after the exercise is completed, the developer will move in to begin construction.
“The site is still being cleared and the preliminary preparations are ongoing. We are hoping that the developer will break ground by the end of this month or the beginning of October. There is a lot of activities going on at the site at the moment,” said Ms Gathagu.
The renewal of the estate was awarded to Tecnofin as the developer and SS Malonza as the consultant and was set to a flagship project as part of first phase of the plan to redevelop seven estates belonging to the county government targeting to put up between 10,000 and 12,000 housing units at the end of that phase.
The other estates earmarked for redevelopment include Ngong Road Phases I and II, Uhuru Estate, New Ngara, Old Ngara, Suna Road, and Jeevanjee.
However, the renewal of the county estate built in 1952 has been embroiled in controversy pitting the county government against the tenants, resulting in several postponement of ground breaking of the project to pave way for the construction of new 1,588 housing units.
RELOCATION
The groundbreaking for the planned upgrade at the estate had been scheduled for August 2018 but this was postponed.
This was then pushed to November with City Hall saying that President Uhuru Kenyatta was to officially launch the project.
In May this year, Nairobi County announced that it had paid out Sh28.8 million to 48 house owners at the estate with each tenant receiving Sh600, 000 to facilitate their relocation for the two years that the project is supposed to take, paving the way for the construction to begin in June.
Nonetheless, this also did not kick off as the tenants opposed the planned renewal accusing City Hall of engaging in ‘underhand’ tactics giving out contracts with numerous ambiguous clauses that are more skewed in favour of the developer.
It was then moved to August to give the tenants more time to relocate as well as iron out ‘contentious issues’ about the project.
Once complete, each tenant would be allocated three-bedroom units at a cost of Sh3 million repayable at Sh8,000 a month for the next 30 years.
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