The Brief Is....... Provide Six Million Housing Units in Twenty Years

[caption id="attachment_1503" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Image of Nyayo Estate in Embakasi. Source: Business Daily Website"][/caption]

Kenya needs a new master plan to help deliver at least six million housing units over the next 20 years if the current housing shortage is to be overcome, architects have said.

According to Mr Steven Oundo, the chairman of the Architectural Association of Kenya, this means that about 300,000 units will need to be produced every year.

Currently, it is estimated that the country produces between 35,000 and 40,000 units a year against a demand of about 150,000 units in urban areas alone.

“This (our proposal) is a realistic target,” said Mr Oundo.

One way of encouraging such developments, he said, was for the government to provide tax incentives, including value added tax exemption on professional services for consultants involved in low-cost development projects worth at least Sh20 million.

The conclusion of the revisions to the building code will also promote the adoption of new technologies in building, considering that it is more performance- than material-specific, he added.

“The high construction cost has been compounded by high taxation of building materials. There are few locally manufactured materials used in Kenya. We are, therefore, exposed to such increases in costs of building materials, compounded by the weakening position of the Kenya shilling against the major world currencies,” he said.

The increasing cost of electricity, he added, also impacts negatively on the construction costs, particularly with regard to cement production where there is heavy consumption of electricity.

“We end up producing cement that is much more expensive than that produced in Egypt or India,” he said.

“We find ourselves in a situation where planning for amenities follows development instead of the actual construction being undertaken on serviced land. This has partly contributed to excessive speculation on land prices.”

Source: Daily Nation