The government of Kenya has pushed construction of affordable housing in Kisumu County to September. County Director of Housing Fredericks Onyango has attributed the delays to delayed funding.
Kisumu County Government in collaboration with the national government and other stakeholders had embarked on developing 3000 affordable housing units in the County back in December 2020. According to the plan, these residential units were to be completed by the end of this year.1700 were to be set up in Makasembo while 1300 units in Anderson estate
“The final budget of the affordable housing in Kisumu project has not been announced, we only have a draft budget. The State has not yet released the funds. The project’s budget was initially estimated at US $7.4M,” said Mr. Onyango.
However, despite the backlog Mr. Onyango said the ground breaking, which was set to happen this month is still going to take place as scheduled and the County is currently looking for contractors.
Also Read:US $56m Buxton Affordable Housing Project in Mombasa, Kenya begins
Models under consideration
In addition, discussions and consultations with construction experts are underway to reach a consensus on a model to be used in the affordable housing in Kisumu project. Among the models under consideration include Design Build and Transfer (DBT) and Built Operate Transfer (BOT).
“We are looking at Nairobi, Mombasa and Kitui counties which have rolled out their programmes to see what they are doing so that we can emulate them. In order to reduce the delay caused by financing bottlenecks, the county is cooperating with potential real estate developers to implement the project. We have also followed a very rigorous process that included public participation and we agreed on how our former tenants will be resettled here after the construction period,” affirmed the Director.
The construction is set to happen in phases and the first phase of construction will target one bedroom apartments for the previous settlers. During the launch of the project late last year, area Governor Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o advised that the use of urban space should include respect to the green spaces of the city sighting restructuring and rebuilding of the eight parks in Kisumu town as proof of the county’s efforts to protect the green spaces.
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