Housing Sacco promises to deliver 125,000 affordable housing units

National Cooperative Housing Union

President Uhuru Kenyatta and officials of the National Cooperative Housing Union in 2019. Nachu chairman Eng Francis Kamande is seated second left.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

The National Co-operative Housing Union (Nachu) has launched an ambitious strategic plan to deliver at least 125,000 affordable housing units in Kenya in support of the Big 4 Agenda.

So far, President Uhuru Kenyatta's administration has allocated Sh142.1 billion in the financial year 2021/22 to support implementation of priority programmes under the “Big Four” Agenda.

In a statement, Nachu said it has partnered with Finsco Africa as a strategic marketing and project management partner in one of its mega multi-billion projects dubbed Riverline Ridges.

Finsco's chief executive officer John Kogi said the firm and the union have initiated a programme for financing landowners to build homes by providing linkages through joint venture programmes, affordable local financing, international financing among other structured partnerships.

 Low pricing

“We are confident of delivering the targeted units within five years. This is a goal we will achieve,” said Mr Mwaura.

 The project sits on more than 400 acre piece of land in Ruiru. Phase 1 enjoys low pricing as low as Sh2 million for an eighth of an acre.

 “Low pricing rates have attracted Kenyans to the Riverline Ridges project which is near completion,” said Nachu’s Chairman Francis Kamande.

Mr Kamande said to date, Nachu has facilitated the construction of more than 30,000 low cost housing units for Kenyans.

The Big 4 Agenda on affordable housing has faced challenges such as costly end user financing, loopholes in the regulations and policies that support easy cost of land, sectional ownership and bilateral investment options for landowners.

Rural roads

However, there have been deliberate efforts to support key players of the affordable housing agenda through the harmonisation of policies between the national and county governments, infrastructure development across board through the tarmacking of both urban and rural roads.

The roads include the Mombasa Road Express Way, Thika Super Highway, Mombasa Road, Ngong Road, Eastern by-pass, Outering Road, connection roads that cut through Kisumu, Kakamega and Kitale, The Isiolo- Moyale Highway that passes through Marsabit, Dongo Kundu Road in Mombasa amongst others.

Mr Kamande said this creation of a conducive environment has prompted Nachu to be a key player in solving the challenge of cost of land in its efforts to provide Kenyans with affordable   housing.

The recently launched Phase two of the project, Mr Kamande noted, will focus on the end user financing for housing development for up to 20 years, which will be devolved to Machakos, Nakuru, Kajiado, Mt Kenya region counties, Kisumu, Nairobi, Kilifi, Mombasa and Western Kenya.