Rise of Katani from white settler sisal farm to sprawling estate

Something is happening within a radius of about 10km from Nairobi’s CBD. Once popularly known as the Green City in the Sun, Nairobi, ‘the place of cool waters’ as the Maasai named it, is slowly losing its allure thanks to cramped, high-rise developments mushrooming in almost every nook and cranny.
This is thanks to developers who are scrambling to catch the eyes of future homeowners and residents with an array of high-rise apartments, albeit doing so at the risk of turning the place into one huge concrete jungle.

Perhaps recent revelations that an area of 1.3 acres along Uhuru Highway will be hived off from Uhuru Park to make way for the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA)-Westlands Expressway is the clearest indication of not just the changing face of Nairobi, but a departure from environmental-conscious development by private and public entities.

SATELLITE TOWNS
For these reasons, real estate insiders concur that most people who live and work in Nairobi are opting to move out to satellite towns in search of breathing space and relatively low noise pollution areas to settle down with their families.

One area that has been receiving many of these residents lately has got to be Katani.

“The number of people relocating to this area is increasing,” Mr Jimmy Nguli, the chairperson of Katani Cosmopolitan Resident Association told DN2 at his home.

Mr Silvanus Omboga, a retired brigadier with the Kenyan army, who has lived here for more than 20 years, has seen many houses come up not just here, but in the neighbouring Syokimau Estate as well. He says the evolution of Katani into the current bustling residential estate has been slow - until 2018 that is.

“Something must have happened,” he says, “it is like an exodus of people moving into this area. Before then, I knew everyone in the neighbourhood by name, not anymore.”

When he visited Katani for the first time in 1996 to meet the person who sold him the piece of land where his retirement home stands, Mr Omboga says the place was a bush full of sisal plantations. Wild animals such as hyenas, zebra and waterbucks, he adds, roamed freely.

“It was scary to walk here even during the day. There was not a single footpath, leave alone a road. On that day that I travelled here to see the piece of land I was buying I had to leave my car in Mlolongo because there were no roads,” he says.

SISAL FARM

Located in Machakos County, about 25 kilometres south of Nairobi, Katani is rising from a vast white settler sisal farm to a sprawling middle class estate boasting of remarkable developments in terms of infrastructure, social amenities, as well as physical and social structures.

The cosmopolitan area is the latest to enter the ever-growing list of Nairobi bedroom areas, a nickname reserved for residential areas where Nairobi residents retreat to in the evening after a day’s work in the city centre.

A spot-check by DN2 last week revealed massive construction of standalone mansionates and bungalows in almost every corner of this area.
Perhaps the biggest contributing factor to the steady growth of Katani has got to be the relatively affordable land, a factor that seems to pull investors like a magnet.

“If you compare land prices along Kiungani Road in Syokimau where a plot measuring 50m by 100m is going for 7million shillings, then this place would be considerably affordable seeing that you can get a quarter of an acre with less than Sh4 million,” offers Mr Gilbert Bore, a resident since 2013.

With more than 15 high-performing public and private schools here, it appears, residents moving in will not have to worry about where their children will quench their thirst for education.

For Mr Bore for instance, the availability of good schools, roads and a quiet environment played a big part in making the decision to move to the neighbourhood.

“The availability of public utilities like schools endeared me to this place. Actually, most people moving in here are in their early forties and have young families, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to move in and then have to worry about where their children will go to school,” he says.

Apart from schools, the area has private and public dispensaries and hospitals. The area’s infrastructure has improved too, with some roads being paved and others tarmacked, opening up the interior areas.

The other reason investors are eyeing the region as an investment destination is availability of raw materials for construction, with surrounding quarries providing this crucial commodity.

RECREATIONAL FACILITIES

While these developments have seen a sharp rise in land prices, people are still buying. Mr Omboga says that in the late 90s, an acre of land was going for Sh100,000. An acre is now going for between Sh20 million and Sh22 million, if you can find one.

Additionally, a 50m by 100m piece of land is going for between Sh1.5 million to Sh2.5 million depending on its location, with those closer to the road costing more than those in the interior.

Social life in Katani is also looking up with recreational facilities such as Katani Resort, Katani Lounge and Seven Ballers, just to mention a few entertainment joints that offer the residents the much-needed opportunity to unwind. Mr Nguli says that plans are also under way to establish a recreation park for children around the area’s two dams.

And the development spike in Katani has not gone unnoticed. According to the patron of the residents’ association, the World Bank physical planners, for instance, after an extensive survey of the area in April 2019, recognised Katani as the only area of Mavoko that has the potential to grow and emerge as a metropolis of Nairobi.

“When we hosted the World Bank officials here, they were very happy about the ongoing development and we are looking at this neighbourhood as the major hub for Mavoko if the latter becomes a city by 2030 as per the projection,” says Mr Nguli.

But the area has to meet certain requirements for it to scale the height. One of the recommendation the World Bank has made is to have the area zoned so that developments coming up do so in a controlled manner.

COMMERCIAL AREAS

Mr Nguli says that as part of their support to the community, the World Bank has already installed street lights on the recently tarmacked Mlolongo-Katani Road.

“The zoning is about putting things right by identifying the residential and commercial areas. We have already done this and submitted our plans to the county government and the World Bank. For instance, in the commercial section, the minimum size of a house one can put up is a bedsitter, those who had already constructed single rooms will have to convert them to bedsitters with time,” says Mr Nguli.

That’s not all, chips in Mr Omboga, the intended zoning also involves identifying areas for high-rise building, mansionettes and flats. He adds that the intention of the residents and the World Bank is to come up with a sustainable, fully developed town with supporting infrastructure and amenities from sewerage systems to market places, hospitals, schools and play grounds.

“For all these public utilities, Katani has land to accommodate them unlike Syokimau, which is already congested, or Mlolongo, whose design was poor from the beginning. That’s what makes Katani stand out,” offers Mr Omboga.

But despite these impressive developments, the estate lacks organised water supply, with residents forced to get water from private boreholes. It also lacks a proper sewerage system.

LAND GRABBING
Katani, like many other residential areas in the country, has also fallen victim to land grabbing, with land set aside for play grounds and a public cemetery converted to public use. Mr Omboga is concerned that just this month they have had to bury four residents on private land even though 50 acres had been reserved for a cemetery.

Resident are therefore urging the government to come in and find out who took the land meant for a public cemetery.

“The old men who took the land from white settlers after independence had a beautiful vision for this land. We have a duty to actualise this vision and protect it,” says Mr Omboga.

Additionally, with most new developments comes a challenge with security, and Katani is no exception.

Recently, a couple of residents were robbed at gun point in the area.

Asked what they are doing to restore security, Mr Omboga says: “The resident association has been working hard to put the insecurity issue behind us. Four years ago we managed to get the government to post eight administration police officers to this area, but they were moved under unclear circumstances to guard a nearby Chinese quarry leaving the residents on their own. It’s very frustrating.”

He however says that the area MP has promised some money to help kick-start the construction of a police post.