Huge losses as houses near power lines brought down

Residential houses believed to have erected under Kenya Power land demolished in Buru farm in Njiru, Nairobi. Tuesday, March 12 2019. [David Njaaga,Standard]

About 600 structures demolished by utility firm in city as exercise moves to other areas.

Scores of city homeowners are counting losses after the demolition of sections of their houses that stood on power line reserves.

Kenya Power says the houses are among thousands of structures illegally erected on a 100km-stretch reserve known as wayleave, stretching 5,300km countrywide.

Last December, the owners of the houses built in Buruburu Farmers Land, Njiru, Mowlem and Saika were issued notices to demolish earmarked structures.

By yesterday, about 600 structures had been brought down, with Kenya Power Security Services Manager Geoffrey Kigen saying the operation would stretch from Buruburu Farmers Land, Mihang’o to Dandora power substation until all illegal structures were removed.

“We cleared around 200 structures on Monday. These are structures which are in various stages of completion and on Tuesday we demolished another 400,” he said.

“We started with Buruburu Farmers Land, next will be Mihang’o and all the way up to Dandora Power Substation,” he said.

At Buruburu Farmers Land, a 60 by 40 plot in the location goes for about Sh500,000, and most homeowners will now have to contend with houses whose designs have been altered as a result of the demolitions.

Most of the houses now don’t have walls and parking spaces.

However, further down the power line, most of the houses are in informal settlements and there are worries that hundreds might be soon rendered homeless.

Khadija Khalif, who had started constructions for rental houses, was one of the investors hardest hit after an excavator turned the houses into rubble.

She bought a plot for about Sh300,000 four years ago and said she had sank a chunk of money in the housing project.

“No one, including the people who sold us and Kenya Power, warned us that we were building illegally,” she said.

Guidelines issued by Kenya Power state that structures should be built on a width of 20 metres on either side of a 220kV power line while on a line of 132kV should be built on a width of 15 metres on either side from the power line.