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Nairobi County Executive will now be required to undertake comprehensive public participation and address the pending questions by residents in areas identified for the urban renewal plan to build and sale affordable housing.
This is after the Assembly unanimously passed the motion by Harambee MCA Anthony Kimemia.
According to Kimemia the public in Lumumba, Jericho, Woodley, and Ziwani estates among others are not well informed on the building and sale of affordable houses stating it’s because they have not been well informed through public information.
“We urge the County Executive to undertake a comprehensive Public Participation on the proposed projects pending questions by residents in the said areas before commencing with the works,” he stated.
On his part while Seconding the Motion, Dandora 2 MCA Silas Matara stated that there are even various markets in Nairobi County which have are not yet functioning because before building them there was no enough public participation conducted before the construction.
“We have markets that were done by the National and county government that are not in use because public participation was never done. We have to ensure that we have an input of those that elected us before such housing projects are done,” Matara stated.
On his part Lindi MCA Ochieng Jera said that the views and opinions of the locals involved in the public participation has to be put in the final report without alteration.
“After having public participation as elected leaders we want to ensure that the report coming from the public participation is followed to the later. There is no need where member of the community are involved in public participation then somebody somewhere goes and prepares a decent report contrary to what the public want,” he stated.
The legislator stated that there has to be a follow up and ensure the projects benefit the locals who gave their views during the public participation and not people from other area.
Hon David Ochieng while contributing the motion on March, 23, 2023. PHOTO/Handout.
“There has to be a follow-up to the later and ensure that the locals of the area benefit and not having people from other areas coming to occupy the houses after the projects are completed. We have seen in most cases where houses are put up in a ward but the beneficiaries are from other places,” he added.
This comes after the executive had already advertised tenders for Proposal Design, finance, build, and sale of the joint venture houses in the nine identified areas.
At the beginning of March Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja launched the pre-bidders’ conference aimed at identifying contractors who will help in the construction of housing projects in the County.
With the support of the World Bank, the Nairobi County Government has prepared Eastland’s urban Renewal Master plan which will focus on the redevelopment of the area.