Sustainable Residential Neighborhood Planning, A Case Study Of Burandogo Village Taveta Constituency

ABSTRACT

Urbanisation and population growth have led to impact that increasingly deplete the natural resources and threaten the existence of the ecosystem. This has led to an increased awareness that the development of land use should be well managed in order to be sustainable. Improvement of housing for the Kenyan population is a major concern to the Government. In its commitment to improved housing the Government of Kenya introduced a National Housing Policy that comprehensively addresses the shelter problem. Given the average household size of 4 persons from the 1999 national Population and Housing Census, there are about 750,000 households in urban areas and 1,500,000 households in the rural areas that need to be housed. With such information the Government aimed to facilitate an annual output of 150,000 housing units in urban areas and 300,000 units in rural areas in the next five years in order to be able to meet that demand (National Housing Policy, 2004). As people were settling in Burandogo there was no planning that was done to ascertain that the neighbourhood has all the social amenities required, this could be to due to the fact the some of the residents settled there as squatters a form of informal settlement that does not consider planning aspects. The housing tenure of the area is mostly tenancy and ownership with tenancy being the most common housing tenure system in the area. With tenancy most tenants pay rent which most of them considered the rent charges as being affordable to them. Some of the physical planning requirements were not adhered to in the neighbourhood for instance the area was not served with an efficient storm water drainage system. The area lacks all weather and well articulated access roads, no properly constructed market place, and poor solid waste management, lacks a sewerage system, lack sufficient and efficient sanitation facilities, security enforcement personnel and schools. The areas that the residents mostly advocated for their improvement include water supply, security, sanitation, storm water drainage and the introduction of a health facility. The demand of housing still far outstrips supply due to the high rate of urbanization, increased poverty, escalation of housing costs and the lack of a clear government initiative towards the same.