Housing

Housing
Theme
Pillar	Citizen's Lives

Housing (Kiswahili: Makazi) is a theme of the Citizen's Lives pillar. It covers affordable housing programmes, informal settlements, urban renewal, land tenure and building materials. Mombasa stands apart from the rest of the coast: there 79.1 per cent of households rented or were provided their home at the 2019 census, against 38.7 per cent nationally, while in the other five counties between 66.4 and 78.5 per cent of households owned their dwelling.

What this page is for

Please add the housing projects, settlement upgrades, land and tenure data and residents' and stakeholders' views on housing on the coast that you know about.

Housing on the coast today

Tenure differs sharply between and within counties. At the 2019 census, owner-occupation was 20.8 per cent in Mombasa, 66.4 per cent in Taita-Taveta, 66.9 per cent in Kilifi, 67.9 per cent in Lamu, 77.0 per cent in Kwale and 78.5 per cent in Tana River. Within counties the picture varies: 90.2 per cent of households rented or were provided their home in Changamwe, 55.9 per cent in Kilifi South and 45.4 per cent in Voi. Mombasa's county fact sheet records 73.1 per cent of housing as permanent and 26.9 per cent as semi-permanent.

Insecure land tenure is a recurring theme in the county plans. Kwale's plan cites a 2018 household survey in which only 32 per cent of residents held title deeds and about 55 per cent had no legal document for their land, and says that land along the coastal strip is mainly owned by absentee landlords, which has led to squatter settlements. Mombasa reports issuing 1,076 titles in the previous plan period, raising the share of landholders with ownership documents from 30 to 45 per cent. Mombasa is upgrading informal settlements through the Kenya Informal Settlements Improvement Project, which the county lands executive describes as a county-led partnership with the World Bank, and its plan lists second-phase areas including Kidunguni, Likoni 203, Kwa Rasi, Kalahari and Hodi Hodi.

New public and affordable housing is arriving fastest in Mombasa and Kilifi. The national Affordable Housing Programme had 6,280 units under construction in Mombasa, 6,448 in Kilifi, 1,674 in Taita-Taveta, 798 in Tana River, 596 in Lamu and 367 in Kwale in September 2026. In Mombasa, the first 584 units of Buxton Point, built by GulfCap Real Estate on county land, were handed over in November 2023, when a second phase was launched. In Kilifi, the Tezo project launched in February 2025 is planned as 1,000 units: 200 social, 600 affordable and 200 at market rates. Taita-Taveta has projects of 831 units in Taveta (KES 2.3 billion) and 446 units in Voi (KES 1.2 billion).

Plans and policy

The Affordable Housing Act 2024 gives effect to the constitutional right to accessible and adequate housing in Article 43(1)(b). It imposes a levy of 1.5 per cent of gross salary or gross income, which employers must deduct and match, after the High Court struck down the earlier levy in the Finance Act 2023. Nationally, the Principal Secretary for Housing reported 220,536 units under development, more than 1.31 million people registered on the Boma Yangu portal and 14,219 units allocated by September 2026.

Mombasa's plan for 2023-2027 budgets KES 18.08 billion for affordable housing, mainly 3,000 new homes through joint ventures, and commits to a county housing policy. Lamu's plan sets aside land for an affordable housing scheme at Mokowe, promises title deeds for surveyed land and resettlement of indigenous squatters, and encourages residents to lease rather than sell land to investors. Kwale's plan argues that available land and low-cost building materials make affordable housing achievable in the county.

Who is involved

The State Department for Housing and Urban Development and the Affordable Housing Board run the national programme, and the Kenya Revenue Authority collects the housing levy. The National Construction Authority and the National Industrial Training Authority are partners on sites such as Tezo. County lands and housing departments prepare the county plans above and, in Mombasa, issue titles, and the Senate housing committee has heard petitions from displaced tenants. The World Bank supports informal settlement upgrading, and private developers such as GulfCap Real Estate build under public-private partnerships.

Open questions

Who gets the new homes? The 522 former tenants of Mombasa's old Buxton estate told senators in April 2025 that none had received a new unit, and that the county should have received units after the first phase. Governor Abdulswamad Nassir said the county is due 184 units only at the end of the second phase and cannot dictate to whom the developer sells. At the VOK Nyali project, residents say prices are out of reach for people without stable incomes, while the Housing Principal Secretary points to tenant-purchase terms from about KES 4,000 a month for a studio over up to 30 years.

Renewal or eviction? Authorities in Mombasa have pursued redevelopment of old public estates since 2016, aiming for at least 30,000 units, but by August 2024 only Buxton had been rebuilt while demolished sites at Mzizima, Changamwe and Likoni lay idle. When civil servants at Hobley estate were told to leave, tenants and a land activist argued there had been no public participation or compensation, while the county housing director said a committee had decided they should vacate.

Can squatters secure their land? Kwale's plan links squatting to absentee landlords on the coastal strip, and Lamu's plan proposes settlement schemes, community titles and leasehold rather than freehold for some land. How far title programmes reach long-settled occupants remains open.

Coverage the plan expects

• affordable housing programmes
• informal settlement upgrading
• urban planning in Mombasa
• land tenure and title
• building materials
• redevelopment of old public housing estates in Mombasa

Projects

A project page joins this theme by naming it as the theme in its infobox. To start one:

Sources

• 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census, Volume IV, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2019
• As affordable houses rise, Kenyans face stark reality of allocation for the privileged, Daily Nation, 2026
• Mombasa County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027, County Government of Mombasa, 2023
• Kwale County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027, County Government of Kwale, 2023
• Lamu County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027, County Government of Lamu, plan period 2023-2027
• The Affordable Housing Act, 2024, Grant Thornton Kenya, 2024
• Planned demolition of Hobley estate leaves residents in panic, The Standard, 2024