- The award certificate will officially be received by the Buxton Affordable Housing project architect Yassir Brek.
- The Buxton project, which will have 1,900 housing units, sits on a 14-acre prime parcel of land within the Mombasa CBD.
Image: ONYANGO OCHIENG
The Sh6 billion Buxton affordable housing project in Mombasa has received an award after achieving the mixed-use development model.
The award is in recognition of the social amenities and facilities the project has incorporated, including having provisions for a community centre, kindergarten, social hall, sports courts, green areas and swimming pool among others.
The project received the Gold Star Award from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) Africa after achieving an 86 per cent mark.
The project survey and scoring were done by both the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) and ITDP Africa, a non-governmental organisation.
ITDP Africa is focused on providing technical expertise to accelerate the implementation of transport systems and urban development policies to improve inclusivity and resilience.
“The inclusion of the social amenities, the project connectivity time to town, the disability and elderly-friendly environment, its active amenable frontages and the project’s adherence to Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design have made it possible for us to receive the award,” Ahmed Badawy, chief executive officer of the project said.
The award certificate will officially be received by the Buxton Affordable Housing project architect Yassir Brek who has been invited to Kigali, Rwanda.
The Kigali conference with the theme, “Transit Oriented Development: Planning for Development and Social Inclusion,” will be happening this week.
“Our architect will give a presentation on this project at the conference and is aimed at inspiring other affordable housing projects in the country,” Badawy said.
The Buxton Housing project is part of the national government affordable housing agenda.
The project, which will have 1,900 housing units, sits on a 14-acre prime parcel of land within the Mombasa Central Business District.
Phase one of the project which entailed the construction of 584 units kicked off in May last year.
Former President Uhuru Kenyatta was expected to commission the first phase in June, but it was delayed.
While touring the project in February this year, Housing Principal Secretary Charles Hinga reiterated the government’s commitment to providing quality affordable housing units to the millions of homeless Kenyans.
“Affordable housing is not synonymous with poor quality, instead it is more about high quality but at a pocket-friendly price,” Hinga said.
The PS called on local developers to visit the project for benchmarking and replicate the same in the various projects being undertaken across the country.
“The benchmark has been set, we cannot go backward. You can only improve on what we have seen here,” he said.
Some 565,000 affordable housing units across the country valued at Sh2.8 trillion have been registered to the National Construction Authority with about 225,000 receiving approval and are in various stages of implementation.
(Edited by Tabnacha O)