60 landlords seek to block works on Gitaru-Ruaka highway

A dispute between the Kenya National Highways Authority and landowners threatens to derail construction of the Gitaru-Ruaka highway.

About 60 landlords with properties in the Ruaka-Ndenderu section have moved to court to stop the project.

Those who spoke to the Star said they sued because Kenha wants to demolish their multi-million-shilling properties without proper procedure.

One landlord claimed Kehna has brought up a new map, which condemns properties initially cleared to be out of the road reserves.

“The reason why there is a dispute is that the maps are not tallying. The maps we have are from the Survey of Kenya and according to them, we are far away from the road. Kenha now comes up with another map saying, ‘hey look your property has encroached on the road’,” he said.

He added, “All we want to be told is where Kenha is drawing the authority that says the road has changed from the initial 55 metres on each side to over 60 metres”.

Kenha claimed the government had bought the pieces of land in the 1969 and 1970 and gazetted them.

“Even if they bought as they are saying, then what they should have done is to compensate us,” another landlord said. 

As the dispute rages, tenants in condemned properties such as the one that housed Gertrude's Hospital have left for fear of damage to their valuables.

Documents seen by the Star show that Kenha in July sought a resolution of the impasse so the works could continue.

On July 14, Kenha director-general Peter Mundinia wrote to the Kiambu land registrar requesting that the matter be resolved to avoid delays to construction works.

Mundinia said landowners who claim that they were not encroaching had resisted efforts to clear the road reserve.

"We had sought the intervention from your office as mandated in law to help in resolving these boundary disputes. This also includes amending the land records to reflect the land acquisitions done in the past,” he said.

"We are thus requesting you to urgently address this issue to avoid adversely affecting the construction works programme and also to address the queries of the affected landowners."

Mundinia said they’d had numerous engagements with the affected landowners and agreed on some actions.

“This issue is already adversely affecting the progress of the project and therefore needs to be resolved conclusively. As this is an issue of encroachment into an existing road reserve, the issue of compensation does not arise,” Kenha wrote.

He said in the letter that construction of the bypass road section between Ndenderu and Ruaka trading centre had begun.

“However, the progress of the construction works is being hampered by the encroachments into the existing road reserve. The most affected is the Ruaka trading centre where numerous permanent buildings are erected in parcels of land which are encroaching into the road reserve.”

Around the same time, Area MP Paul Koinange requested Kenha to furnish him with the land acquisition records.

Soon after, the Kiambu county commissioner also directed that a meeting be held with all parties to forge a way forward. 

Consequently, a virtual meeting to try and resolve the dispute was held on July 27.  

The meeting was chaired by the county commissioner and attended by the MP, Kenha representatives, a Presidential Delivery Unit representative, the land registrar, Kiambu district surveyor and some of the affected landowners and their representatives.

After the meeting, the county commissioner led a physical mapping exercise and cleared the landlords' properties.

Days later, Kenha said they had a different draft map that they were using to subdivide the lands.

The landlords are adamant their properties satisfy all requirements.

“[The] majority of these developments were put up in 2006. We followed all procedures and, in fact, we obtained beacon certificates after officials from the physical planning department and surveyors gave us a clean bill,” Maina, a landlord, said.

According to the landlords, a sensitisation meeting with Kenha in 2019 confirmed that their properties were not affected.

After the meeting, owners of affected properties were advised to demolish or adjust accordingly.

“Now the same Kenha has come up with another map saying the first had issues and needs to be corrected. So how come they are building a road using a draft map?” the landlords asked.

In the second phase, the properties that had been cleared were marked for encroaching on the road by between two and four metres.

“All we are asking Kenha is to come out clean and tell us what is going on. If not they should respect documents in the public domain and use the maps provided by the Survey of Kenya,” Ngang'a said.

Mundinia told the Star the claims that they had produced another map were untrue. 

He said via Gazette Notice numbers 3345-3346 dated October 10, 1969 and 3437-3438 of November 20, 1970, the government compulsorily acquired land from various parcels in the area for road realignment and expansion.

“When Kenha marked the encroaching structures for removal to enable the construction of the Nairobi Western Bypass Road, the affected landowners protested, insisting that they are not within the road reserve,” he said.

He said the landowners claimed that they have genuine titles for their parcels of land.

“In order for the boundary disputes to be resolved, we referred the matter to the Kiambu Land Registrar as provided in law.”

From the meeting, the county commissioner directed the registrar to resolve the boundary disputes to avoid delays in the road works. 

Mundinia said the registrar issued notices in August through the area chief to the owners of the affected land parcels in the area, including the petitioners.

The notices informed them to lodge a boundary dispute and when the registrar would visit the site to determine their claims. 

He said the field exercise to determine the boundaries was conducted between August 17 and 26.

“We relied on the survey maps of the area (obtained from Survey of Kenya) and the land acquisition drawings for the acquisitions done in 1969 and 1970. Kenha has not produced any new map,” Mundinia said.

The land registrar forwarded a report of the field exercise carried out to determine the boundaries. It confirmed that the marking done by Kenha to indicate the road reserve boundary was correct and thus the parcels of land are encroaching on the road reserve.

The bypass connects Kikuyu to Ruaka, both in Kiambu county, which then connects to the Northern Bypass.

The 17.7 km road was designed in 2019 and is due to be completed in 2022. 

It runs from Gitaru to Ruaka through Wangige, Kalara, Ndenderu and Rumigi.

The road will have a service road and walkways measuring two metres on both sides.

It has six interchanges and overpasses in each of the six townships where the four-lane dual carriageway is planned to pass.

(edited by o. owino)