How surge in cost of land is shaping Nakuru City's built environment

Surging land costs and rapid population growth have driven Nakuru City's public and private developers to embrace high-rise residential projects to combat affordability challenges in the county.

However, this shift faces strict limitations, especially the city's unique Rift Valley soil capacity and active fault line, which has seen most residential buildings capped at between three and five storeys.

Skyrocketing land prices within the Central Business District (CBD) and its immediate neighbourhoods are increasingly pricing out middle-income earners, and it is mostly the blue-chip companies and the upper business class that seem to snap most real estate deals in or near the city centre.

This has seen tenants who look for alternatives with reasonable rent often pushed away from the core CBD to reside in cheaper suburbs or informal settlements. However, to maximise the use of expensive land, developers have turned to multi-storey residential units, pushing the boundaries of what was historically considered viable for the city's housing market.

While commercial office blocks can reach heights between 9 and 24 storeys, developers are strategically spreading three-to five-storey residential flats across various estates to provide affordable housing for the city's booming population.

The primary barrier to going higher with residential developments in Nakuru remains its geological foundation. According to structural engineers and Nakuru County bylaws, the underlying volcanic soils and geological fissures found on the floor of the Rift Valley dictate how much weight the ground can support. This makes careful geotechnical surveying critical before any construction begins.

"Off course that's a dictate, which all our approvals must adhere to if we wanted to maintain sanity in the construction industry," former Nakuru County CEC for Lands and Housing Francis Mwangi had said in an earlier interview when the tallest commercial building in the city had 12 floors.

The building is located along Moi Road in the heart of the city. A private engineer who requested not to be named said a lot of factors influence the number of floors to be built in different areas in the city.

"For example, we discourage building of high storey buildings along the fault lines taking into account we are based at the floor of Rift Valley. Also, security matters also control some of our work," he said. "Several factors determine how high a building goes, not because we are seated on the floor of the Rift Valley after we have done our geo-technical report. We deal with a case after the other but on merit".

The civil engineer revealed that building of storey residential houses is discouraged on where national security installations are placed, not only in Nakuru but all over the country.

"We do lots of consultations with them (places of national security installations) before approvals could be made on such facilities," he went on. "Population factor also dictates how tall a building should go. This is because it could sustain the amenities in the surroundings," he said.

And most of these high storey residential housing units in the city (Nakuru) are either two or three bed-roomed, which targets the middle or high class citizens due to their affordability. "These types of modern houses are good, but their affordability is beyond the reach of most of us. However, the current units are spacious and habitable," said Benedict Odhiambo, a city resident.

The rent for a two or three bed-roomed unit in mid-high end residential areas ranges between Sh14,000 to Sh20,000 per month coupled with high a 24-hour security surveillance.

Such types of housing units are readily available and easily accessed in the high-end residential estates of Naka and Sections 58 and parts of Freehold estates. "This means the high middle or upper class are the only ones who could afford such rents," added Odhiambo.

Some of them are located in Free Area, Langa Langa Phase One, some parts of London, Racecourse and Pangani Estates and in the Kiti Area but their rent are a bit lower but occupied by the lower and middle middle working class.

And in some selected parts of the slums in Kwa-Rhoda and in Mwariki Estates, private developers have taken the risk to build such modern houses.

"Those who occupy such houses in the slums are tenants who have lived in similar places. This is because they are used to the ecological and environmental conditions of the same areas," said William Kamau, a resident of Mwariki.

Kamau stated a tenant from Naka Estate cannot withstand the ecological conditions of the slums even if modern house units are built there.

"That's the difference with all these developments, and they must be built after sustainable consultations if their marketability is to last long," Kamau told The Standard.

Real Estate consultant Elly Ogutu said economic conditions had eroded the pockets of most developers in the industry, hence reducing the pace of development.

He admitted that most of them are not doing well in the industry.

"Real Estate business is not at its best today. This is because of several factors, but most importantly, it's due to our financial power that has been eroded by the economic constraints," he stated.

Ogutu, who is the Managing Director of De-Negotiators Commercial Agency and who operates in Racecourse Estate and in Kiamunyi Areas, said most houses built here are mainly two floors. Most of them are one or two-bedroom housing units.

"This is occasioned by the size of plots, which are normally very narrow and cannot sustain the weight of the house owing to weaknesses in their soil-holding capacity," stated Ogutu.

Most plots in the estate measure 80 by 40 feet, a development he says is too narrow to accommodate more floors. Ogutu said with time, things will get back to normal.