Sh1.8b project to transform semi-arid land at Kilimambogo in Thika

The plans for the project and ongoing construction work. PHOTOS: ERIC WAINAINA/STANDARD

BY ERIC WAINAINA

A Sh1.8-billion real estate project expected to transform a stretch of semi-arid land at Kilimambogo in Thika, has begun.

Upon completion, Buffalo Hills and Golf Village, a gated community being developed by Kamuthi Housing Cooperative Society, will have 750 homes standing a total of 355 acres. The homes will be built on quarter and half-acre plots.

It will also feature a nine-hole golf course covering 108 acres; a clubhouse next to a man-made dam covering 9.5 acres within the golf village with a swimming pool, game rooms, sauna, gym and spa among others.

It joins other multi-billion real estate projects coming up in Kiambu County, including Migaa and Tatu City. Development at Migaa, a project by Home Afrika Ltd, and situated on Kiambu-Ruiru Road, has already taken shape with the first inhabitants expected to move in this November.

Located 7.5 kilometres East of the Thika Superhighway, about five kilometres South of Garissa Road and about 1.1 kilometres West of the greater Eastern Bypass, the project is expected to be complete in the next two years.

When Home and Away toured the project, masons were working on a gatehouse, which has two entrance/exit levels and is about 95 per cent complete. Earthmovers were cutting roads on the grass and acacia covered land with electrification done to about 80 per cent and the Kei apple hedge planted around and three fruit trees planted in every plot.

Design

Samuel Wamae, the project manager, said that, so far, civil engineering, electro-mechanical engineering and architectural typologies are complete. The environmental impact assessment and golf course design, which will open up access roads within and water connection, are complete, he said.

This, he said, means that plot owners were now free to start constructing their homes according to the designs offered by the society.

The development will be controlled, giving a limit on the number of storeys one can have on their house and giving a specific percentage on the built area.

However, investors who include members and non-members, are not restricted on the design of the house they choose as long as it has been approved by the society.

“We want to have a planned development, not a situation where one person constructs a five-storey building and on the next plot another someone putting up a shanty,” he said. Wamae said contractors for road works, walkways, surface drainage, golf course and street lighting have been identified.

According to Bernard Maina, the society’s chairman, most of their plots have been sold and the prices had shot up from Sh300,000 last year to more than Sh2 million.

“Inside the Golf Village, half-an-acre goes for Sh4 million while quarter-an-acre is going for Sh2 million. An eighth of an acre (50 feet by 100 feet) goes Sh600,000,” he said.

Ideal location

Maina said being between three major roads and bordering a major river, the presence of a dam and the panoramic view of the Kilimambogo Hill, make their project a masterpiece. “It is an area where nobody wanted to invest but since we launched the project, land values have gone up by more than 400 per cent,” he said.

He said people want serenity, exclusivity and security, hence the exodus from major towns. “People don’t care about where they buy land as long as it is affordable and accessible. This means late buyers can only get land past the new estates,” Maina said.

He added that they managed to lobby the then Ministry of Roads to have the link road from Mangu to Komo on the proposed Greater Eastern Bypass tarmacked.

This is expected to open up the area and spur growth, John Mwaniki of Jekmass Services, a real estate company with interests in Kiambu, said, noting that with the construction of Thika Superhighway and bypasses, most investors have rushed to the areas where developments stalled due to inaccessibility.

Kiambu County is quickly getting a face-lift as more investors set up gated communities in an area that was once an agricultural zone. And after exhausting available prime land, they have now turned to remote areas.