The cost of land has been mentioned as one of the major hindrances towards achieving the targeted 500,000 Affordable Housing units .
It is among the systemic issues that Housing PS Charles Hinga highlighted as what made it difficult to achieve President Uhuru Kenyatta's target to build 500,000 houses in five years.
“You cannot have the most expensive land on the continent and affordable housing in the same statement," he said.
The Affordable Housing Programme, which was launched by President Uhuru Kenyatta, is one of the pillars under his Big Four Agenda.
It is intended to provide decent and affordable housing to low and middle-income households.
The PS explained that Nairobi had been listed as the the top most city in Africa where land is expensive.
"Land contributes 40 per cent to 60 per cent of the cost of the unit. If we are to deliver affordable housing, we have to sort out systemic issues," he added.
To address the matter, Hinga said the state decided to built the houses on its own land which would be zero-rated.
Among other issues highlighted to have hindered the delivery of the 500,000 units include; titling, old building codes and cost of construction.
The other pillars in the Big Four Agenda are Universal Healthcare, Food security and Manufacturing.
Despite the hurdles, Hinga revealed that so far, at least 9,000 units have been constructed throughout the country.
He explained that as part of the AHP, there are two sets of housing, public housing on state owned land and the other being delivered by the private sector.
"It's not easy to give a figure of how many units have been delivered to date. That is because we have two sets of housing: we have public housing on government land, which is under 9,000 units (that have been delivered).
"The balance (units) are being delivered by the private sector. The government's main role is supportive. This was after the Housing Fund was frustrated," Hinga explained.
However, the biggest challenge facing the project was titling and by digitising land, the PS said it was a sigh of relief to the government.
"We have a big problem with our titling section and the sanctity of the titles. If as an investor I do not trust the title, then I'm not putting in my money"
"We digitised to deal with this problem. Because this is a big shift, it keeps being frustrated," he added.
Ardhisasa is a new land record system that was launched by president Uhuru Kenyatta in April 2021 putting an end to manual land transactions.
The process officially commenced in Nairobi county, three years since the strategies were put in place.
Other parts of the country are expected to be digitised by December 2022.
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