[caption id="attachment_1423" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="The site plan of Kihingo Village, a gated community coming up in the suburbs of Nairobi which will be featured soon in Architecture Kenya"]
[/caption]During the colonial period, estates in Nairobi were clearly demarcated along racial lines - European, Asian and African. Access to the European quarters was restricted to African domestic workers. Then, discrimination was in vogue and defined such arrangements.
That was then. A new demarcation in housing estates is fast taking root in major towns albeit in a different way - through gated communities - mostly dictated by security and the need to cut costs by the home hunters.
While some see it as a development that elevates Nairobi to a status consistent with other cities, there are those who see it as failure by city authorities to provide basic needs to the public.
According to wikipedia, a gated setting is a residential community or housing estate containing strictly controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles and automobiles and are often characterised by perimeter walls and fences.
And the unintended result in the increasing number of gated communities is isolation, with housing estates defining social-economic class. The stand-alone home owners are giving way to estates that seek to provide security in numbers. Some have membership code of conduct and share certain social amenities.
The phenomenon, that started in Nairobi is fast spreading to other towns in the country with Eldoret being the most recent to join the fray.
“The major driver of the gated community is security. Security has gone haywire in the country and the stand-alone house owners have borne the brunt,” says Mr Renigald Okumu, a real estate developer.
He said the sharing of facilities like electric fence, street lights, roads, sewer systems, swimming pools and the gym among others are some of the factors that are pushing potential home owners to opt for gated community environment.
However, Mr Kigara Kamweru, a lecturer in architecture and science at the University of Nairobi says the concept is not just confined to estates but is spread to commercial, institutional and even shopping malls.
“It is not just in housing but in broader perspective it includes even shopping malls. This is a sign of failure in city planning, where the public feel more secure by being in smaller more controlled communities. They (public) are reacting to the failure to provide security and public space,” he said.
“They are also concerned with maintaining certain standards in the estates, which is not offered by the authorities,” said Mr Kamweru.
He said marketing of the concept as lifestyle choice has made it appear desirable, but warned that it could in the long run result in social tensions.
“The city is a public place at best where even a stranger should feel at home. This process of privatising cities through appropriation will lead to tensions,” said Mr. Kamweru.
Mr Okumu, however, said estates like Buruburu and Umoja began in similar a way with controlled environment but things started changing after original owners sold and left houses to new owners not bound by the code of conduct.
“The concept is gathering momentum and we are likely to see more of these gated communities. Initially the gated communities had about 10 units but they are growing larger and larger,” said Mr Okumu.
Such estates like the Green Golf estate in Thika and the proposed Tatu City in Kiambu are expanded versions gated communities.
However during its launch, officials behind Tatu City, whose take-off is bogged down by legal battles argued that it would not be a gated community.
Under the arrangement, developers buy plots for which they are provided with architectural designs of the houses they should build, mostly targeting the upper and middle classes.
Gated communities elicit different reactions in the world, with reports that post-apertheid South Africa has seen the rise of such estates mostly driven by security needs.
In Argentina, the middle class which lives outside, regard those in gated estates as rich and flouting their wealth.
They refer to these estates as ‘countries’ or private neighbourhoods.
In Saudi Arabia, establishment of such estates increased as Europeans and Americans sought protection in the 1990s, when they increasingly became targets.
Some critics say gated communities give false sense of security, with limited access to other people giving a conducive environment to a criminal, while large numbers in open communities are able to detect and prevent crime.
Source: Daily Nation
