Change of mindset necessary in building affordable houses

[Photo: Courtesy]

“For which of you intending to build…does not sit down first and count the cost...” Luke 14:28 

My mother once taught at a high school alongside some expatriate teachers. One of them, an Irish lady, befriended her. This lady talked endlessly about Patrick, someone with whom she lived and was totally besotted. Patrick, it seemed, was the epitome of perfection. Finally, the day came to meet this paragon of virtue. In a beautiful house set on half an acre of land complete with a picturesque garden and picket fence, my mother was ushered into a tastefully decorated room where Patrick was reposed. Shock! The much spoken of Patrick was no handsome gentleman but a pet goat!

The Kenyan concept of society is centred around the dichotomy between the wealthy and the indigent. In between are the middle class. The wealthy are those who own homes in the leafy suburbs and regard their billy goats and cats as members of the family. The poor on the other hand, subsist on less than a dollar a day and live in hovels. They would sooner make a decent meal of pets like Patrick the goat than house him. Perhaps, to address this disparity, the president has made affordable housing one of four pillars of his legacy.

In theory, the Government has it right. Going by the president’s recent speech, there are plans for Government policy to include a combination of direct subsidies and generous tax exemptions to public and private entities engaged in building houses. However, in practice, this will require great intellectual acuity to deliver on the half a million homes in the next four years.

Actualization

There are issues that the Government needs to interrogate to make affordable housing a reality. For a start, it needs to identify the target market. The sort of people who have decorated rooms for Patrick the goat, are removed from this discourse. They already own expensive homes. That leaves the lower and middle classes. Lessons can be drawn from the attempted gentrification of Kibera slums under the Grand Coalition government of 2007-2013. Kibera is easily East Africa’s largest slum. It houses over 200,000 people in squalid conditions.

An attempt was made to convert these make-shift houses into high-rise apartments. The inhabitants were then allowed into these apartments at a modest rental fee. However, the experiment failed because the inhabitants found the nominal rent unaffordable. The lesson here is that housing for the slum-dweller only becomes affordable when there is an increase in income or the cost of living is substantially lowered.

The second issue has to do with up-take of already built houses. Kenya’s housing deficit is about 150,000 units per year. Going by the assumption that 125,000 units are built annually for the next four years to reach 500000, the annual deficit would reduce to 25,000 units. Kenya’s mortgages stand at 24,000 loans. Even with an influx of cheaper loans, it is doubtful that these mortgages would rise by much.

Seeking way out

Perhaps the time has come to turn conventional thinking on its head for solutions. First-off, the myth that low-cost housing is synonymous with poor quality and poverty should be debunked. Building decent houses with high-end fixtures in places like Kibera, and Mathare will create the panache needed to bring in the sort of crowd that will not only afford these houses but also gentrify the area. Second, a contrarian disposition demands that we revisit our archaic building codes to allow for more commonly available material.

Currently, the 1969 codes in place allow only for brick and mortar. Coral stone is a cheap alternative. The codes also need to reflect new technologies available. Third, incentives should be given to developers to shift to the periphery of urban areas where land is cheap and available.

The Government should then put up the requisite infrastructure to make these places habitable. Such infrastructure would include provision of water and sewerage works, electricity, roads and a commuter light-rail system linked to the nearest towns.

Finally, we need to move away from obsession with home ownership and encourage developers to put up affordable houses for rental purposes. Houses can be on an either “built to rent” or “rent to own” model. The former is for new entrants into the job market where the focus is on working to save for investment. The latter is for more established occupants who would want to eventually own their homes as an investment.

Mr. Khafafa is Vice Chairman, Kenya-Turkey Business Council