Affordable housing
Residents of Kiambu County have lauded the government’s initiative towards educating and informing them on the Affordable housing projects.
The residents who participated today in a public participation meeting on the affordable housing organized by the County Commissioner through the Department of housing underscored importance of their views in the Draft Regulations on Affordable housing.
Speaking today when he officially chaired the Public Participation meeting at the Kiambu County Community Hall, the County Commissioner Duncan Darusi said the government is aiming at providing many house units and increasing the mortgage with favorable ownership terms.
“Under the affordable housing pillar, the government aims at providing 200,000 units per annum and also targets to grow the number of mortgages from Sh 30,000 to Sh 1million with favorable ownership terms that have a monthly payment of as low as Sh 20,000 and below,” he said.
Speaking during the forum, James Maina a member of the task force in the National Government said that Kiambu County target is to build 50,000 affordable houses for the residents in the next five years.
He explained some of the key provisions of the affordable housing regulations such as inclusive fees under the Act, eligibility for exemption, eligibility for allocation, rate of deposit and deposit assistance as well as inclusivity and diversity within the affordable housing schemes.
Maina further mentioned of change of affordable housing unit, reallocation due to default in payment, change of defaulters unit to lower value unit and also the loan interest rate or administrative fee including on entering agreement to develop institutional housing and approvals
The law on affordable housing Act, 2024 was signed into law by the President on 19 March 2024.
Dickson Ngugi a resident from Thika working at Thika Jua kali Association outlined some of the grievances their association faced and called on regulations to accommodate allocation of 40 percent rate on affordable housing for SMEs, technical support, capacity building and training for institutions such as TVETS, access to finance and equipment, included in the affordable housing project.
Maina said, “this housing Act does not take full mandate on all other government institutions and is not meant to isolate members of the public,” he said urging residents to register by browsing on the Boma yangu site or dial the ussd number *832# and register with 200 Kenyan shillings after which they will create an account for them to save their money for their own affordable houses at their own comfortability.
Today’s meeting brought together civil servants, county government employees and other stakeholders to give their views on the draft regulations on the affordable housing project.