The Nairobi County Government has confirmed that three grand hotels in the busy Eastleigh estate will soon be demolished for supposedly contravening building regulations.
The three hotels include the eleven-storey Grand Royal Hotel, seven-floor Barakat Hotel and eight-storey Solar Lodge.
The hotels are part of 45 other establishments including three mosques and a church that face an uncertain future for posing a threat to the nearby Moi Airbase.
According to a complaint launched in May by the Moi Air Base (Eastleigh) Commander, the three hotels had exceeded the permitted number of floor levels allowed in the area while Grand Royal Hotel and Barakat lack occupation certificates.
The three mosques, which are four-storey are on the spot for exceeding the three-floor limit for buildings near the air base while the PAG church is next to the air base fence with only a 12-metre road between it and the airbase.
Structures must be at least 15m from the fence of the airbase.
Interestingly, demolition notices for the buildings were issued on separate dates in 2009 and 2010.
“We deliberately left out applications from developments done on disputed private or public land, riparian way leave or access roads. For those like the ones in Eastleigh, the law will take its course. The buildings will have to come down at some point,” Governor Evans Kidero told a local daily on Saturday.
In April 2010, the grand coalition government authorised the demolition of all illegal structures around airports and other strategic installations such the Moi Airbase.
Some of the developers whose buildings were on the condemned list, moved to court and obtained injunctions against the demolition.
Also in the said list are tens of residential flats, which have exceeded approval limits or encroached on the 15m buffer zone of the air base and lack occupation certificates.
26 of the 45 properties had been issued with demolition notices by May.
