Embu,
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
KNA by Steve Gatheru
Embu County Commissioner Jack Obuo has recommended that the National and County Governments agree beforehand about how approvals for construction of affordable houses would be acquired to forestall delays in implementation.
He said the requirement in the draft Affordable Housing Fund Regulations that county governments must get the approval of their County Assemblies before approving the commencement of building might be a bottleneck in the implementation of the programme.
He said there needs to be prior agreement on how the houses could be implemented quickly once sites have been identified for the public to start benefiting from the projects as early as possible.
He was speaking at the Embu Talent Academy during a public participation forum on the proposed Affordable Housing Fund regulations.
Obuo appealed to the Department of Housing to consider putting up some of the houses on Police Stations and Prisons land, to help alleviate the housing shortage experienced by officers in the two law enforcement institutions.
The Chairman of the Embu Branch of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mugo Mate said the regulations should address the issue of the refund process for those who apply for houses but do not get after paying the 10 percent deposit.
He also said the regulations should state what would happen to those who become incapacitated or die before they have completed paying for their allocated houses.
“We would like to know whether there will be some kind of insurance to help those who may die or become permanently disabled before they have completed paying their instalments,” he posed.
Mate also raised a concern about the proviso that a house owners could not sell their affordable house before eight years were over.
He said there was no reason why a house owner should be tethered to a house when they had alternatives such as moving to the rural areas.
An Assistant Director of Housing James Mwangi who was the main facilitator said the eight-year rule was proposed to prevent people applying for houses with the hope of selling them immediately after allocation.
He told the forum that those who buy the houses would be expected to be under the sectional ownership laws that say, among other things, that one could not interfere with the main walls in case of modifying the house.
Ms. Gladys Atambo of the University of Embu said the regulations needed to address issues of diversity and as an example, set a quota of the houses to be sold to special interest groups such as those with disability and other marginalized groups.
Courtesy; KNA
