Private Development for Public Good

Phase 1 encompassed a multi-billion shopping and residential complex, Hamptons Mall, with Mwal-mart Supermarket as the anchor. The mall hosts Mwalmart supermarket, Hamptons Cafe bed and breakfast, showroom and more than 90,000 square feet of private residences. Phase two commenced in June 2016 and ran to September 2017. This included the first section of 5,000 bed referral hospital, over 70 kilometers of roads, and more than 300 solar street lights. Phase 2 also included the first phase of 4,800 homes expected to host doctors and nurses. The final phase, from September 2017 to December 2020, includes the 36-hole golf resort and residences, an airport with the second shopping mall, a convention center and a water park connected to the hospital by a cable car. It will also have medical school, a technology park and a 144-megawatt gasification power plant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB0JtaUGNRk

Taking shape

Set within 400 acres of the beautiful sprawling greenery of Limuru, Tilisi is the new city in town, which redefines the essence of business, lifestyle and leisure.

As a master planned and managed development, with world class infrastructure, Tilisi encompasses logistics, residential, educational, medical, recreational, hospitality, commercial and retail uses - ultimately offering a corporate and community experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUdcd5fesG0

In the process

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Npxw3WHO1s

Feel free to add any other projects deserving of recognition by the village.

We will get back to you after the 26th of October.

I posted about Mwale in Kakamega. Someone posted a link that led to me back to my stomping ground of skyscrapercity Kenya. The project owner is a con and therefore that project might not happen.

Tilisi was inactive for 4 years until they signed up some corporate clients for light industry, logistics and warehouses. Its now under construction.

All in all I support all investors in the country and I wish them well. When they struggle its not good.

Politics has become too toxic at the moment and that’s why I chose to post this.

They have already broken ground as far as Mwale goes and there are some developments in place, all it requires are fair rules of engagement for any individual desiring to invest there.

For each of these developments, 1000 people become poorer. That’s the Kenya we live in.

Elaborate!

This can get lengthy but can be answered by a simple question. How many people living adjacent to these developments can walk in and do shopping at that mall or even sit down to have a cup of coffee? These are developments for the rich who just stream in purchase property/rent whilst limiting their contact with the locals for security reasons. Overtime, locals realize it was a bad deal but they sold off their land legally and now their community is disintegrated. Nationally, arable land is turned into concrete landmarks that benefit the privileged in the society. In the grand scheme of things, new millionaires are created while people get poorer and the gap between the rich and poor widens. This is the Kenya we live in.

My assessment is that the land holding is too small for any economic activity, in fact for majority the farming cannot sustain them for an entire season cycle making them susceptible to being a politicians stock in trade. The project can provide employment to the same people if a good deal is well negotiated prior to disposing of their land not to mention the trend of Corporate Social Responsibility being adopted by commercial enterprise where the investors may be compelled to give back part of their profit to the local community. There will be a general sense of development and empowerment for the locals whose land won’t have been acquired for the project as they will have a market for some of their farm produce next door plus their land will appreciate in value with such a project next door. The bottom line is that majority will benefit capitalism notwithstanding.

Most directors/managers can’t explain their company’s CSR objectives clearly…they only show up for events which are captured in quarterly reports and magazines. And it takes a couple of years before investors recuperate their investment anyway…most actually use these projects as dumping grounds for their cash and don’t really care if it takes a decade or two before they break-even. So sharing profits may happen in the second decade and can be circumvented through change of ownership or inheritance.

In Kiambu, the government should consider land consolidation seriously so that we can have economically viable agricultural land that can also act as a carbon sink for the capital. Increase of land value is actually a bad thing for the nation because land will be taken up by people (and sometimes speculators) who may never do anything that will benefit the immediate society. Plus if you sell land you only get cash and lose your land. It can be a lot of cash but most of it will not be invested prudently. Cash gained through sale of land hardly gets to the second generation most of whom may become poor…But arable land can change hands in the family for centuries.

Employing the immediate community in these developments is difficult, they hardly have the work ethic and may not be suited for certain jobs. Most of these workers are also not unionized so they end up getting a raw deal. At the end, the property managers gives the contract to a company even for simple jobs like cleaning and landscaping and request them to hire locals. They may do so but will walk away with a huge chunk of the profits leaving the locals surviving on salary advance. It’s a bad deal, I have seen it happen.

I concur with your view on many of the issues that ensue development of such projects but we can all agree if well handled by institutions entrusted with safeguarding the interests of the locals, the benefits of the projects far outweigh continued ownership small parcels of supposedly arable land that is producing nothing much.

I agree, best scenario would be the concerned communities deciding on which investments to take. I guess the Kiambu community would consider the existence of Tatu City and seeing how best they can make use of it, and what lessons can be learnt before surrendering more arable land to developers. At Tatu, I witnessed the cutting down of coffee trees as they cleared part of the land. Again institutions like NEMA which evaluate the environmental impact of these projects are corruptible which really makes impact assessments a joke. Yes, more should be done. Creating strong institutions to guide this, is a start.

[ATTACH=full]134029[/ATTACH] Agree completely.

Mwale is a con

Precisely, who wants to invest in Kenya under the current political climate?
And believe me it’s going to get drastically worse if Uhuruto don’t win.
Kenyans are about to learn the importance of political stability to investment and Economic growth.

I would not invest in Mombasa any time soon with the toxic Joho politics of today. I know of a group of people who bought land in Lamu interior, a place where you need a military envoy to escort you. Sadly, their investment is worthless.

What did they intend to do with the land?

Their plan was to put up retirement vacation homes. It’s a gorgeous, picturesque place but it takes 2 days to get there by road plus armed escort.

Ambitious

Anything specifics you can pin on him? I would like to buy into his idea.