Focus on Kiambu County.

[Kenguy]

Kiambu’s big landowners dump coffee for real estate boom.

Kiambu’s big landowners, who have made a fortune growing and exporting coffee on the outskirts of Nairobi, are opening up the farms for real estate development targeting the housing market’s high level returns that have seen the value of land more than double in the past five years.

Top in the list of wealthy landowners who are converting their vast coffee estates into use for urban settlement is the family of Kenya’s founding president, Jomo Kenyatta, former attorney-general Charles Njonjo and Kenyatta’s cousin, Njoroge Mungai.

Also in the list of rich political families who have or plan to use the thousands of acres held as a stepping stone into the real estate market are the families of former powerful minister in Kenyatta government Mbiyu Koinange and James Karugu who succeeded Mr Njonjo at the State Law Office.

Kiambu, which is located on the western fringes of Nairobi, has the highest number of powerful families who have had tight control over vast tracks of land they acquired from British settlers at independence and whose value has appreciated more than a hundred times in five decades.

The Kenyatta family — which held thousands of acres farms around Ruiru — is converting part of the holding into a multi-billion shilling private municipality crafted in the style of Tatu City – Kenya’s premier private city plan that was unveiled late last year but is held up by shareholder wrangles.

Declassified archive material show that Peter Muigai and Peter Magana — both sons of President Kenyatta — acquired 468 acres in Ruiru at less than Sh70,000 under the World Bank funded resettlement scheme that was to help Africans buy land occupied by white farmers at independence.

People familiar with the plan say this is the land that the Kenyatta family has earmarked for the private municipality to be known as Northlands City.

Sources familiar with the ambitious plan said the development is tipped to be the single largest real estate project in Eastern Africa. Initial estimates show that the real estate development is worth more than the Sh240 billion private municipality, Tatu City, which is backed by Moscow-based Renaissance Capital, former Central Bank governor Nahashon Nyaga and industrialist Vimal Shah.

Dr Mungai’s family is reportedly planning its own entry into the real estate market with two separate developments in Magana and Limuru areas covering a total of 750 acres.

His in-laws, Senior Chief Koinange wa Mbiyu’s and former attorney-general Charles Njonjo’s families have similar plans on the cards for land held in Kiambu County.

Dr Mungai’s brother, Ng’ethe Mungai, who served as Kenya’s ambassador to the United Nations, is also seeking a strategic investor to put up a private golf course on a 600-acre parcel of land in Limuru that he acquired from St Paul’s University.

In a new twist of events, the university has proposed to buy back the land for its expansion but its bids have failed in the face of high asking prices.

The Mungais are also in a separate joint venture with his brother to develop a multi-billion shilling mixed development on 150 acres in Magana around Kikuyu township featuring both residential and commercial property.

Mr Njonjo is said to be looking for investors for a planned joint venture to develop his 200-acre Runda farm.

His successor at the State Law Office, James Karuga, has also jumped into the property market bandwagon with a mixed use development on a 600-acre parcel of land.

President Kenyatta’s in-laws in the Koinange family have sold 300 acres of their vast land previously under coffee plantation along Limuru Road to developers who have announced plans to put up prime property.

Listed investment firm Centum Holdings has, for instance, acquired 100 acres from the Koinange family next to the leafy Runda suburb on which it intends to put up a mixed use development targeting foreign missions and international civil servants.

Centum says the value of the land has more than doubled less than 12 months since it paid Sh1 billion for the parcel.

The Aga Khan Foundation also acquired an adjacent block of 200 acres to build a university while upcoming developers including Temus Apartments and County Developers are looking for land in the same location to build homes for sale.

James Mworia, the Centum managing director, says an independent valuation revealed that the two parcels of land that the company bought in the last financial year, including the one in Runda and another in Entebbe, had jointly appreciated by more than Sh1 billion.

“We made the acquisitions at very attractive prices and at the end of the year when we obtained an independent valuation the two parcels were a billion shillings higher than the cost price,” he said.

Land economists say that the land owners are mainly responding to urbanisation pressure around Nairobi and its impact on demand for housing supported by enlargement of the middle class by rising incomes.

Boom

“The Kenyan economy has expanded, giving a lot more people the financial muscle to buy homes with the land owners as the ultimate beneficiaries,” said Mwendwa Makathimo, a land economist.

“It is also possible that these families are using the opportunity to cut back on their land holdings to comply with the demands of the new Constitution,” he said.

Nairobi’s real estate boom has persisted in the past five years as the economy grew creating a newly rich class of homebuyers with fresh tastes and preferences who are dictating the shape of activity in the market.

This new class of homebuyers has showed a willingness to pay for value addition - a factor that is widely responsible for increased attractiveness of housing units with amenities such as common playing grounds, swimming pools and shopping malls.

Nairobi’s developers have cited scarcity of land as the main driver of the property market boom that has seen prices rise more than three-and-half times since 2000.

Several posh housing estates have come up on the outskirts of Nairobi in the recent years but most of the land remains under coffee cultivation opening opportunities for joint ventures in property development.

Most visible ones include the Rosslyn Heights and W&K estate -- both targeting high end of the property market.

Dan Awendo, the managing director at Investeq Capital and a partner at Migaa Estate says most of the landowners are looking to reduce their exposure in the land market in the view of proposed laws that have put a capping on how much land an individual can own.

“Some of the land owners have been forced to seek exit routes since the new laws have limited ownership for non-citizens to only 99 years,” he said.

Mr Awendo argues that enactment of the new land laws through the yet-to be formed National Land Commission is only a few months away.

It is expected that the laws will make it costly to own idle land and even allow for repossession of underutilized land by the State.

Investment

Mr Awendo gave the example of that Migaa Estate’s 776 acres that the investment club acquired from prominent family, which had in turn acquired it from international tea and coffee company, Finlays.

The Constitution in Article 68 also allows Parliament to legislate on the maximum acreage that individuals can own, an issue that could see holders of huge tracks of land lose part of it to allow for equitable distribution as would be prescribed in the laws.

Robert Bunyi, an investment advisor and managing director at Mavuno Capital says that returns from real estate by far outstrips those from coffee and tea farming contributing to the replacement of plantations with housing projects.

He says that even the smaller land owners were now taking on sizable project enabled by the entry of strategic investors who provide the funds for development.
“Individuals who are little-known are now handling very large real estate projects besides the big names in the market,” said Mr Bunyi.
Rising property values over the past decade means that the entry of these families into the real estate sector essentially multiplies their wealth, cementing their profiles as among the richest Kenyan families helped by sharp appreciation of the land that they own.

This is especially so considering that the respective households controlled huge tracks of land running into thousands of hectares under coffee cultivation but the farms are now steadily being replaced by new investments in property targeting the high income earners.

As an illustration, land sellers are asking for about Sh16 million for an acre of land in Paradise Lost, some 20 kilometres from Nairobi and the prices tend to be even higher closer to the city according to Peter Mukoma, the managing director of Ideal Property Agents.

But the new-found wealth amongst these landowners could perhaps best be illustrated in the recent drama relating to the Fourways Junction estate pitting a director against her peers over control of Muga Developers- the company building the Sh30 billion worth estate along Kiambu Road.

Thanks to an out-of-court settlement, Mrs Nancy Gatabaki, a director of Muga Developers joins the ranks of the wealthiest women in Kenya after receiving Sh725 million in cash and houses to forfeit her stake in the company.

All the while, the final settlement is far from the Sh5 billion she had demanded in her initial application as value for the 100 acres contribution to the project, placing the asking price for an acre of land at Sh50 million.

Mr Makathimo- who is also the managing Vidmerck Limited, a property management firm says that the decisions by the wealthy families to open up their estates to property development could also be linked to a new regulatory framework drafted to discourage under-utilization of land.

“They could be trying to avoid punitive legislation which increased the costs of holding prime land that could generate more utility” he said.

Kabaki Wamwea, a director at County Developers says that rising income levels promises to generate new demand for homes in the foreseeable future, predicting more farmland was set to change use to property development.

“What we are witnessing are effects of a strong demand for homes that will keep pushing out the boundaries of the city to take up more farmland for the property development,” said Mr Wamwea, whose firm is putting up a middle-income estate in Ruaka.

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/C...z/-/index.html

[desert burner]

Listed coffee and tea producer Sasini has obtained approval to construct commercial and residential buildings on its Ruiru plantation in a strong indicator that the company could shift to real estate development.

The Municipal Council of Ruiru has granted Sasini’s request for change of user on the 1,000 acres of land currently under coffee, paving way for diversification or complete switch of the company’s core business to property development— in what is becoming a common trend among land owners in Kiambu County.

Possible shift

But Sasini CEO Caesar Mwangi said the company does not plan to change from agriculture business in the immediate future.

“The application for change of user is a strategic move to allow a possible shift in future,” said Dr Mwangi. “We are still keen on the cultivation of coffee because its prices in the international markets are holding steady,” he added.

Being a listed company, a change in the core business would require a shareholder approval to implement.

Sasini joins a growing list of landowners in Nairobi’s outskirts who are shifting to real estate development to gain from outsized returns in the sector. (Read: Kiambu’s big landowners dump coffee for real estate boom)




Dr Mwangi said Sasini’s board had no immediate plans of ditching coffee farming on its Ruiru farm because a short supply of the commodity in the international markets promises to keep prices attractive.

Analysts, however, reckon that the company was likely to enter real estate development to capitalise on the strategic location of its land and optimise on its use. (Also read: New Thika Highway lures multi-billion investments)

“It would not come as much of a surprise. Sasini could be looking at its asset base and asking whether they are maximising on it,” said Mr Robert Bunyi, an investment advisor and managing director at Mavuno Capital.

According to court papers filed in the Tatu City legal dispute, an acre of land in the Ruiru area is estimated to cost Sh20 million, putting the estimated value of Sasini’s land at Sh20 billion. Sasini has a total market capitalisation of Sh2.5 billion. Some analysts also argued that it would be more profitable for Sasini to cash in on the Ruiru land before seeking cheaper land in a less prime area for the coffee plantation.

Tatu City, the Sh240 billion private municipality project backed by Russian investment bank, Renaissance Capital, and the Kenyatta familiy’s proposed “Northlands City” are close to the Sasini Ruiru estate. (Read:Tatu City opens new business doors for mortgage financiers)

“Commodity prices have appreciated well but they could sell and look for another piece to grow coffee,” said Mr Eric Musau, an analyst with Standard Investment Bank.

The coffee industry has been showing signs of picking up after years of poor performance, recording steady increase in prices over the past three years.

Global coffee prices have risen, particularly those of Arabicas, with this year’s monthly averages outperforming last year’s. In August the monthly average of the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) composite indicator price stood at about 424 US cents per kilogramme compared to 314 US Cents for the same unit in August last year.
Sasini produced 1,106 tonnes of coffee last year. With the prices averaging Sh392 per kilogramme, estimated revenue earnings stood at Sh433.6 million from its 912 acreage under coffee.

In its half- year results, Sasini reported a 39 per cent increase in profits to Sh423.5 million owing to high international prices and exchange rate gains, which cushioned it from a major drop in output attributed to poor weather. With the continued weakening of the Shilling, currently trading at 95.65 against the dollar, Sasini stands to be a major gainer as an exporter.

Apart from coffee, Sasini is also engaged in tea production with 1,437 acres set aside for tea plantation.

A shift by Sasini and other large scale coffee farmers would be a blow to government efforts of keeping the industry afloat with the creation of the coffee development fund and debt waivers extended to farmers.

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/S...z/-/index.html

[Kenguy]

Can't wait for all those projects to get started. This county will turn out to be Kenya's largest construction site in a few years.

[Kenguy]

Originally Posted by Kenguy

Bahati Ridge

image hosted on flickr

They finally launched this project. Skip the boring speeches and scroll to 0:29. I love the mall at 1:47.

[Kenguy]

Developer opens up IGCSE schooling route for parents stuck on waiting lists

Nairobi, Monday 7th November 2011:

With Kenyan middle class parents struggling to secure IGCSE schooling in Nairobi, the Bahati Ridge development in Thika is opening a new path to IGCSE education, with the country gated community set close to four schools in the Thika area that are all currently expanding IGCSE places.

Braeburn has identified Thika as the next location for its IGCSE expansion, even as it runs waiting lists in Nairobi. Having acquired Imani School, Braeburn Imani opened in Thika in September. The group is also now building an entirely new school due to open in just over a year within easy reach of the new Bahati Ridge middle class estate.

Juja Senior International School on the Thika Highway connecting Nairobi to Thika is likewise less than 10 minutes’ drive from Bahati Ridge and recently added a full class per age stream for IGCSE places. St Lucie Kiriri, also nearby, has also just opened a new IGCSE campus.

Conversely, IGCSE schools in Nairobi are currently operating at full capacity, with many children now on waiting lists for six months or more. “We at Braeburn have parents who have been put on the waiting list, because we can only take a certain number. It’s the best we can do,” said Andy Hill, the Headteacher at Braeburn International School.

An administrator at St Christopher School in Nairobi reported the same, with the school forced to put qualified students on hold as resources become constrained.

Harold Otieno is a parent whose attempt to get his children to IGCSE schools in Nairobi has so far failed. On advice from other parents, he decided to move his kids from their 8-4-4 school to IGCSE where they were put on the waiting list for more than six months until he moved his two daughters to St Andrews Turi in Molo, Rift Valley.

“My wish was to have them near where I work, which is in Nairobi. But being put on a waiting list in the first school, then another school, since there was no space to admit my children, was disrupting their studies. I had to do with taking them away to a far school where I don’t see them often and it’s hard monitoring how they are fairing,” said Harold.

Another mother, Mildred Anyango has been forced to take her son to Kivukoni International School in Kilifi, where she could get space, after paying a registration fee to have her son enrolled in an international school in Nairobi, but still waiting after eight months without admission.

The four new schools in Thika and Ruiru all report space for new enrolments, offering a new opportunity for families relocating to middle class estates such as Bahati Ridge on the opening of the new fast-track highway from Nairobi to Thika, which will cut commuting time to and from the central city to around 30 minutes.

“Thika offers the chance to build a spacious campus, with great sports and other facilities enabling provision of extra curricular activities that are an important part of our group philosophy. At present we are in a tranquil compound on Kakuzi Road, but are about to start work on a purpose built school which should be ready by January 2013,” said Catherine Sat, the principal of Braeburn Imani in Thika.

The sum is that “children living in Bahati Ridge will benefit from excellent education, while spending a minimum amount of time in traffic,” said Gilbert Kibe, Managing Director of Bahati Ridge.

The estate, which is offering more than 300 new family homes in a gated community with its own primary school, shopping and leisure facilities, is also 10 to 15 minutes drive from Peponi School, Ruiru, which also offers IGCSE.

[Kenguy]

[ernestombayo7]

Thanks for the video kenguy.Very interesting development.

[Kenguy]

Originally Posted by ernestombayo7

Thanks for the video kenguy.Very interesting development.

You are welcome.

[I.M Boring]

Originally Posted by Kenguy

this should be the standard of living for Kenya.

[Kenguy]

JUJA, Nairobi Industrial Park.

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) has become the first institution in the east African region to host an industrial park designed to contribute to Kenya’s growth to a newly industrialized economy within the broad framework of Vision 2030. The multi-million shilling Nairobi Industrial and Technology Park to be located at JKUAT whose construction works is expected to commence in June 2012 will act as an incubator for knowledge based high growth oriented enterprise with the potential to grow to medium level sizes within short periods.

Dr Karanja speaking during the occasion said his Ministry had committed a total of Shs. 2.2 billion to the project that he said would be instrumental in the wealth creation agenda under the government’s Vision 2030 plan. Engineer Karanja argued that Kenya had to embrace the culture of industrialization and manufacturing in particular if it hoped to confront poverty and unemployment. “There is no country that can develop without a vibrant manufacturing sector”. The establishment of the Park he said will provide solutions to the many challenges inhibiting the growth of Kenya’s industrial sector.

Dr Karanja said the country last year imported goods and services worth Shs. 900 billion against the country’s export of Shs.400 billion, a situation he lamented that created a trade deficit of Shs. 500 billion. Most of the trade deficit he said was as a result of Kenya’s fixation of exporting raw materials with no value addition. ‘It is only in Kenya where we harvest and export raw tea in sacks. We can reduce the huge trade deficit by adding value to our raw materials through manufacturing’

Council Chairman, Eng. Julius Riungu welcomed the establishment of the facility and pledged his Council’s full support saying his board had already set aside 32 acres of land where the park will be constructed.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showth...4#post88717194

[Kenguy]

Originally Posted by Kenguy

Fourways Junction.

This project is coming up at the intersection of Kiambu road and the Northern bypass. The first phase is already complete.







http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=915960

Courtesy of SE9.

Update.

image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


By Findingnimo, Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7571084...n/photostream/

[mwanamwiwa]

I like!

[Mintali]

how is the Miiga project progressing?

[xJamaax]

image hosted on flickr


That's cool!

We need more of these at affordable rates.

[Kenguy]

Red Hill: Redhill heights

image hosted on flickr

Red Hill Heights conveniently located along Limuru Road in the much sought after Red Hill Area offers a unique opportunity to investors and those looking for affordable homes to acquire a slice of property in a private residential gated community with a difference. With only 28 Units available and with each unit occupying approximately ¼ acre of land, this enclave promises privacy, comfort and good value for money.

There are two type houses to be built and they are distinguished only by size. Each house is carefully sited to maximize lighting and to offer from the balcony a clear view of the beautiful garden below and charming countryside. The houses are architectural showcases of affordable modern living.

http://redhillheights.com/

[Mkenyasili]

Amazing view, gorgeous houses....boy! At this rate, I can see myself back home right after school.

[èđđeůx]

Fourways Junction houses look sort of messy. I mean the roads look tiny and the parking space not really big. The fences aren't that good either, but other than that it's okay!

[Mkenyasili]

Originally Posted by èđđeůx

Fourways Junction houses look sort of messy. I mean the roads look tiny and the parking space not really big. The fences aren't that good either, but other than that it's okay!

+1 That orange color spoils it for me.

[brayo]

Originally Posted by Mkenyasili

+1 That orange color spoils it for me.

I dont think it looks that bad. Plus the colour is a good choice considering that the soil in that area is red so having orange walls will blend well with the soil colour. As for the fences, they are designed to be "live fences" i.e. once the bushes under the fence start growing, they will cover the wire mesh and create a proper fence.

[Mkenyasili]

Orange is just not one of my favorite colors