Author: A4KENYA

1.What are some of the safety precautions landlords should adhere to before erecting a building?

Landlords as the developers have a duty to ensure safety of occupants in these high rise buildings. Common dangers are seen when children are playing and pass through the space in between railings or climb over these. Also, loose railings pose a danger to people who lean on them and the railings give in, resulting to a fall.

The railing height should be such that children can not easily climb over and fall.

Also, a height of over 1.2m is strategic in that it discourages people from sitting or leaning on the rail since its slightly higher than the waist level.

Railings on balconies are a good place for rescue in case of fire. Design should be such that in case of a fire breakout, occupants can easily move from floor to floor using the balcony railings as support.

2.What are the penalties for owners of buildings who do not adhere to rules?

In developed countries such as USA, when occupants are injured due to faulty building parts, the responsibility is first shifted to the architect to explain what went wrong. If the building owner is found to ave neglected the maintenance of the building, then he is held liable. If the architect did not supervise the railing fixing, where ample hooks were properly embedded into the wall and floor slab strongly. With newer construction technologies eg prefab walling, this can pose a challenge in terms of proper anchorage.
Penalties in developed countries include both civil and criminal liabilities. In Kenya, we have still not fully embraced consumer protection laws but with the new National construction authority, we will start seeing consumers/tenants being taken care of to prevent unnecessary injuries due to poor building construction methods. In Kenya, we are yet to see a tenant or building occupant take the route of suing the building owner due to injuries from poor building methods. Poor detailing of stairs, for example, where one stair height is uneven and different from the other,, usually result in dangerous falls in apartment buildings where the occupants simply take care of themselves without taking the route of suing the building owner, as in the case of developed countries. With time, occupants will slowly know their rights and will start demanding compensation from poor building construction that results to injuries. Also, its very common for school roofs to be blown by wind, in the process, the timber trusses injuring occupants. In such cases, the issue is reported only in the media but no one is put to task to compensate the injured. In developed countries, the building developer and architect could be put to task to explain why the roof anchorage did not include wind force.

3.Which parts of Nairobi are most affected?

The low income housing areas of Nairobi eg Kayole and Mathare North are mostly affected. This is due to the lack of technical supervision and also lack of Nairobi City Council building inspectors intervention. In these areas, the lands are not titled, usually held in share certificates so when developers would like to seek Nairobi City Council building plan approvals, there is a requirement that the land must have a title hence due to huge demand for housing, the developers usually just go ahead without involving the Nairobi County approvals. Its High time the Nairobi County resolves the land ownership issues and allows property owners with share certificates to submit their building plans, thereby ensuring occupants are safe once county development control officials bring in some sense of standards in the construction process.

4.Is there any landlord who has been prosecuted for not following the regulations?

Internationally, in most developed countries, this is usually the order of the day. No developer cna risk to construct without the intervention of architects to check on quality control.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1239543-halifax-building-inspectors-investigate-south-end-balcony-collapse

http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1240862-suit-in-2006-balcony-fall-set-for-trial

In Kenya and most other African countries, we are yet to reach the level where building occupants know their rights and put pressure on the landlord in case of injury. Once the land lord is pressured, he then learns that to avoid this, he needs to involve technical intervention from architects and engineers as he builds the next building or he renovates the existing ones.

Francis Gichuhi Kamau, Architect.
info@a4architect.com

Single storey buildings in Kenya can be constructed using various technologies to reduce construction cost such as using stone, prefab panels or earthbags.

Cost of construction of asingle storey building can easily be reduced by having small reduction costs in all the building elements i.e foundation, walling, roofing, doors and windows and finishes.

Stone.
Stone is increasingly becoming expensive as quarries dry up in Juja. Cost of walling with cost per m2 of stone wll surface with one side plastered at around kes 1,400 per m2. This is slightly cheaper than prefab walling at kes 1,800 per m2 but more expensive than earthbag walling at kes 800 per m2 with both sides plastered.

Stone has advantages in that it does not require external plaster and is self supporting.

Prefab panels.
Cementous prefab panels cost a minimum of kes 1800 per m2, higher than stone wall and earth bag walling. They also require light steel gauge structure to support .

Prefab panel advantages are that the panel is usually quite smart since the plaster is done in factory controlled confines, hence the accuracy.

Earthbag walling.
This is self supporting and provides the lowest cost ossible for single storey walling compared to stone, iron sheet and prefab panels.
The disadvantage is that the wall is 450mm thick, hence not suitable for small spaces since the wall takes up large floor area surface.

Bottles can be introduced to create interesting wall patterns.







Francis Gichuhi Kamau, Architect.

Buying off plan is whereby someone buys a property before the construction is complete. In most cases, the purchase is in form of a 10 to 30% deposit towards the total sale price.

1. What are the pros and cons of buying a house off the plan?

Advantages.
Off plan sale prices are usually set at the break even point, without huge profit markup by the developer. The developers usually set up initial low prices to attract initial buyers from which will attract the rest of the buyers,hence setting up the low sale price.
Off plan sales also reduce the risk to the buyer since the initial required amount of 10 to 30% enables the buyer to have more time to do due diligence for the remaining 70 to 90% of the sale price.
Some smart investors buy buildings off plan when they are still in construction then resell once construction is complete, making huge profits easily since they only use the initial 10 to 30% then resell to new buyers when the price is high after completion.
This is one of the easiest ways to make millions of shillings in Kenyan real estate.
After a building is complete, naturally, the property demand becomes higher hence higher prices.

Disadvantages.

In rare cases, buyers can buy into a project whereby the developer does not intend to complete the building. Also, in rare cases, buyer can buy into a project then legal complications as towards the land ownership title deed can come into play eg at Tamarind Estate, Mlolongo whereby after buyers had completed paying and moved into the houses, the title deed developed issues of double allocation, resulting to long court cases.

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Corporate-News/Mwau-sucked-into-Tamarind-and-KCB-Mavoko-land-dispute-/-/539550/2477430/-/tohw2hz/-/index.html

In other cases, buyers do not get the quality of construction that was promised by the developer eg in the case of Greenpark estate, Athi river where buyers complained of sewer issues.

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/m/story.php?articleID=2000106175&story_title=When-the-gated-lifestyle-dream-collapses

2. What are the things you’d advise a buyer to look out under this arrangement?

As an architect, i would mostly advise a buyer to look into the architectural, engineering and quantity surveying consultants hired. If the developer has retained the services of registered architects, engineers and quantity surveyors, for design all through till supervision to completions, chances of any technical failure is close to zero. In most of these failures as outlined above, the developers retain the services of architects, engineers and quantity surveyors for the design only so as to enable the county government to grant approvals. After approval to construct is granted, the developers then continue to construction phase without the architect, engineer and quantity surveyor input, hence the problems emanating from this. It would be prudent for the buyer to ask to see agreements between developer and consultants and go further and ask for proof of building supervision eg site meeting minutes and site attendance register.

Also, the buyer will need to make due diligence checks on the title deed to see if there are any caveats to the land and confirm the land ownership details.

3. How can a buyer ensure they are not ripped off in instances where the developer does not live up to the specifications?
If buyers insist on the architects, engineers and quantity surveyors involvement in supervision of construction, then chances of technical problems are reduced to zero. Consultants usually have strict code s of ethical conduct hence not easily moved towards shortcuts like developers hence ensuring quality. Buyers can also opt to hire independent architects, engineers and quantity surveyors to advice them throughout the building process as to whether the quality control mechanisms are being adhered to.

4. Many say the problem comes mainly when developers refuse to retain professional/qualified consultants like architects and engineers? Do you agree and what would you advise?
Yes. In Kenya, building construction is largely unregulated and the buyers are usually at the mercy of developers with little or no quality control input mechanism to protect buyers. Since the Kenyan laws are not well crafted to force all developers to use registered consultants, buyers will have to set up their own personal mechanisms such as hiring independent professionals to counter check quality until such a time when such laws will be in place and enforced to ensure consumer protection.

Francis Gichuhi Kamau, Architect.

Walling is mainly used to enclose a habitable space in the house or the property boundaries.
There are various materials that can be used, with each having its onw costs, advantages and disadvantages as shown below.

1.
Masonry walling.
Masonry stones are rapidly becoming expensive as the quarries continue to dry up in Juja and Kilifi. A machine cut stone is currently going for kes 60 per piece, bringing the cost per m2 to kes 800 for stone only and kes 250 for joining cement motar, totaling kes 1050 per m2.
This requires an expensive reinforced concrete foundation that can withstand the heavy self weight of stone , at 10kn/mm2 per 3m length of walling.

2. Stabilised soil block walling.

This is made form compressed red soil mixed with cement. It requires careful quality control to check the mixes and curing. Simple mistakes will result in the stones crumbling from elements of weather such as rain.
Protection from elements of weather is necessary, through roof overhangs and copings.

Cost per m2 is around kes 600.

Cement plaster covering is necessary to ensure the wall is weather proof from rain and sun. Assuming kes 400 to plaster both sides, this totals to kes 1000 per m2.

3. Earthbag walling.
This is made of soil filled in to polypropylene gunny bags.

The cost per m2 is as below

Cost of labour per bag is kes 30. Cost of bag is kes 20. Total cost is kes 50 per bag. This brings out to kes 500 per m2 for walling.

These will need plaster on both sides to protect the polypropylene bags from UV rays from the sun. Assuming kes 400 per m2 to plaster both sides, this totals to kes 900 per m2, which is lower than cost of stones and stabilised soil blocks.

Francis Gichuhi Kamau, Architect.
0721410684.
info@a4architect.com

1/8th acre plot for sale, Kahawa Wendani.

Price guide kes 12.85m.
Call 0721410684 or email info@a4architect.com for more info.

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