Tens Evicted as Gov’t Demolishes Houses in Woodley Estate

Residents of Woodley Estate are in distress after their homes were demolished Tuesday . 

This comes after the residents, through their association, failed to prevent the demolition of their houses.

A total of 43 houses, including that of veteran broadcaster Sammy Lui lost their homes in the exercise on Tuesday morning.

The residents opposed the move, arguing that they were not involved in the decision-making process before the demolition was carried out.

The Nairobi County Government plans to build modern housing in the area.

Woodley Estate, located along Joseph Kang’ethe Road in Nairobi has been at the center of controversy over ownership of the structures there.

The houses were demolished following the expiry of the vacation deadline at midnight on November 19, 2024.

Some tenants had vacated the houses earlier after receiving compensation of Sh900,000 from the Nairobi City County Government.

Others were forcefully evicted upon the deadline’s expiry.

Scrap metal dealers were seen scavenging for metals and other valuable materials from the demolition sites.

Security was tight as the bulldozers descended on the structures flattening them.

The bulldozers started with fences around the structures before moving to the houses.

Those affected had attended a meeting convened by the Woodley Residents Welfare Society (WRWS), where they hoped to chart a way forward after the welfare group lost a petition seeking to block the eviction of certain tenants.

The eviction is part of the county government’s urban renewal housing project in partnership with Africa Reit Ltd.

The meeting was seen as a final attempt to prevent the looming evictions, which finally came.

The presence of the elderly residents carry the memories of the estate, which was originally built by the then-British colonial mayor, Sir Richard Woodley.

Lui, a long-time resident has lived in the estate for 53 years.

For him, the eviction notice is both distressing and disheartening.

“We have nothing against the project, but we should be engaged,” he said.

According to the aggrieved residents, the county government failed to involve them in the public participation process as required by law.

“I am among the 43 tenants expected to vacate, yet I have never been part of any public participation process the county claims to have conducted. They approved the demolition of old houses marked as Lot One and Lot Two without consulting us,” said Lui.

WRWS secretary, Peter Ngatia, stated that they have invited Governor Johnson Sakaja to hear their concerns.

The estate that comprises 300 housing units, including flats and two- and three-bedroom standalone bungalows, was constructed in the 1940s and 1950s.

It is one of the many decades-old estates the county aims to demolish in order to build new high-rise apartments to accommodate the city’s growing population.

This came days after Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) got a green light to seize over 100 residential properties grabbed in Woodley Estate in Nairobi valued at about Sh1 billion.

This is after the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the commission.

The Appeals court upheld a judgement by the Environment and Land Court which had ordered the said land to be returned to Nairobi City County Government.

The three judge bench comprising of Justices Francis Tuiyott, Jessie Lesiit and Grace Ngenye-Macharia termed the acquisition of the public property by private developers ‘fraudulent, illegal, null and void.’

The case which commenced in 2006 and saw EACC, which was at the time the defunct Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) file about 52 recovery suits at the Environment and Land Court.

Justice Samson Okong’o at the time declared the title held by Paul Moses Ng’ethe invalid, null, and void for all intents and purposes for having been acquired fraudulently, further directing the Registrar of Lands to cancel ownership of the land by private developers.

The ruling prompted Ng’ethe to appeal the case, which has now been dismissed for lack of merit and confirmed the entire judgement of the Environment and Land Court.

“The orders which commend themselves to us to make are the appellant’s appeal against the judgment of Okong’o delivered on the 27th February 2020 in ELC No. 2054 of 2007 has no merit and is hereby dismissed, the judgment of Okong’o, J. is confirmed in its entirety and the 1st respondent will have the costs of the appeal,” ruled the court.

Ng’ethe was also ordered to pay the costs of the appeal to EACC.

EACC will now move to ensure appellant, his agents, tenants or any other persons currently occupying the recovered property deliver vacant possession for handover to the government.

The anti-graft body will also be seeking to finalise all other suits pending before the Environment and Land Court.

The Estate also known as Joseph Kang’ethe is said to comprise of prime residential houses standing on about an acre each.

The commission has been seeking to reclaim stolen public property and has won a series of cases.