Nairobi City County has faulted the defunct Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) for the backlog of applications for development projects within the county.
Through the County Executive Committee Member (CECM) of Built Environment & Urban Planning Stephen Gathuita, he noted that the county inherited NMS' approval systems which had caused a lapse in the electronic systems.
This caused the construction of buildings in the county to stall for months. Some applications dated back to October 2022.
Further, he noted that the approval system is still under the purview of the national government.
Gathuita confirmed that concerted efforts were already put in place to optimise the system and transfer it to under control of the county government.
"The county is endeavouring to process all received development applications," he told Kenyans.co.ke.
The NMS had constituted a multi-sectoral urban planning technical committee to handle building plans and approvals in Nairobi County.
Former NMS Director General Mohamed Badi had ordered that all planning approvals would be handled from the office.
The Architects Alliance (TAA) had said that they would proceed with construction of buildings regardless of authorisation from Nairobi County owing to the months of delay of the approval process.
The association faulted the county government for not approving any development project since March 2023. They claimed that some of the delays dated back to October 2022.
Sylvia Kasanga, an architect under the alliance, claimed that efforts to reach the county government to clear the backlog were futile.
She alleged that some people within the county government sought to sabotage the electronic system. She claimed that there were plans to revert the system to manual as done in some other counties.
"Unless of course it is by design. We believe this continued downtime is a lot more than just a regular technical hitch," she stated.
The architects threatened to invoke Section 58 (6) of the Physical and Land Use Planning Act of 2019 which would give them the leeway to proceed with construction without permission if they had not received a written response from the county government within 60 days.
"We shall take legal action for the compensation of losses incurred as a result of stalled approval process, as well as recover the monies paid for approval but continue to be unlawfully held by the Nairobi City County without delivery of services," she reiterated.
