Rongo town cries out for Property investors

By Stanley Ongwae

Rongo’s population has been increasing rapidly as the number of college students and staff grows. But investors are not putting up enough houses and a crisis is in the offing.

It is widely believed that places with high populations attract investors in housing. Such places also attract other investors to exploit various business opportunities.

But the story of Rongo town in Migori County is different. Despite increased demand for rental houses in the town, investors in property development and management are yet to make a mark in tapping the huge potential in the area.

A group of Rongo University College students could not find a house to rent in Rongo town and had to look for accommodation in another town, 50 kilometres away from college.

Regular students, though, are lucky, as they can get accommodation on campus. But the university is also in a crisis over lack of enough housing facilities to accommodate more students and run its programmes.

Crisis

The crisis has spilled over to residents of Rongo town who are bearing the brunt of increased rents due to inadequate housing units.

Rongo’s urban population has been increasing rapidly, largely due to the growing number of local university and college students as well as their staff.

Logically, it was expected that with the coming of such learning institutions, business people would rush to make fortunes out of the increased potential: Real estate investors would be rushing to build apartments for rental, other ingenious business people would be clamouring to open various business enterprises.

But in Rongo, no such rush has been witnessed, even with the incoming of Rongo University College (a constituent college of Moi University), St Magdalene Teachers College, Moi Institute of Technology and University of East African, Baraton, situated at Kamagambo.

Of the four, only Rongo University College and Moi Institute of Technology are government-run colleges. The University of East African is a Seventh Day Adventist Church institution while St Magdalene is a private college offering P1 and diploma teaching courses.

But it is Rongo University College that is bearing the brunt of insufficient accommodation most. It also lacks enough lecture theatres and offices for its town campus and has been forced to rent the facilities.

The town, which has a population of more than 50,000 people, is in need of more than 5,000 housing units to contain the situation.

Almost all the institutions that have contributed to the housing shortage in the town were introduced less than two years ago and their stature is growing fast.

Challenges

Experts predict that the housing problem might triple in the next five years if nothing is done.

The past one year has witnessed a sharp rise in housing demand even as investors sit on under-developed land.

Philip Makabong’o, a businessman in Rongo town, however, says numerous challenges have been undermining developers’ desire to build more housing facilities.

“We all know there is a housing shortage but the reason you can see many pieces of undeveloped land is because investors lack resources to start up housing projects,” said Makabong’o.

He says most investors shy away from taking bank loans because of high interest rates. The town is dominated by semi-permanent structures designed to accommodate a maximum of three to five people.

One can also be sure of finding mud houses smeared with white-wash paint in the central business area of the town.

The situation has seen rents double with higher rates expected if the problem is not resolved.

Demand

According to Bernard Okoth, a resident of Rongo, single rooms have the highest demand.

“Small housing units are in huge demand because they are best suited for people in the lower-income bracket like students and lower class employees as they are lowly priced,” he says.

Rents for single rooms with electricity and water connections go for as much as Sh4,000, up from between Sh1,000 and Sh2,000 two years ago. A spacious and decent house fetches between Sh7,000 and Sh10,000 per month.

The crisis strikes at a time investors in the housing sector remain missing in the area, leaving the residents and students from local tertiary learning institutions scrambling for the few houses available.

“University and college students are always on the look out for vacant houses which are not there at the moment,” says Bernard.

According to Rongo University College principal Prof Samwel Gudu, the institution is yet to put up its own premises, hence the need for more space for lecture halls, offices and hostels in the town.

“Due to the expected rise in student population, we have been trying to encourage locals to invest in houses that we can rent and use as lecture halls, offices and hostels for our learners,” says Prof Gudu.

The university runs two campuses: The town campus which is situated within Rongo town while the main campus is situated at Kiteere, where Moi Institute of Technology used to be — about 20 kilometres from Rongo town.

No land

As of now, there is no land that can be allocated to the university for expansion within the town, an issue that has left the college to depend on developers to put up rental premises.

Usually, local town councils are obliged to donate land to public institutions wishing to establish their operations in the township. But according to Rongo Town Clerk Douglas Obiria, there is no land available for the only university in the county since all the council’s land had already been dished out to private developers.

“The university came late when all the parcels of land owned by the council had been allocated to individual developers,” he says.

With barely three months before the next lot of admission starts, thow to resolve the housing problem is the talk of the town.

The university will be admitting nearly 1,200 new regular students in September for various degree programmes. This is the second year the university is admitting Joint Admissions Board students.

Prof Gudu says the college is expected to admit an additional 1,000 self-sponsored students.

“We have already identified a group of land owners with whom we are negotiating so that we can secure a piece of land to erect a town campus complex as a way of resolving our own housing problem,” says Prof Gudu.

However, the principal says the university will consider carrying an extra burden of accommodating self-sponsored students, but only if the boarding facilities crisis is resolved and a long-term solution found.

Sitting on idle land

Obiria on the other hand attributes the housing crisis in the town to the unwillingness of locals to give out idle land to willing developers.

“You can’t control ownership of land and land owners are simply not willing to surrender their land to investors with great business ideas for development,” he says.

George Odunga, the principal of St Magdalene Teachers College, says the institution wants to be part of the team looking for an amicable solution to the housing problem.

“We are also concerned as an institution because we would not like our students to have problems finding a place to study or more importantly, to sleep,” says the principal.

He is one of the members of a team of institutional heads holding talks with investors to resolve the situation.

Hopes are that the consultative meeting with the local college heads and the local investors will resolve the problem.