Kisumu Real Estates (KRE) has promised low cost housing units to be constructed from January next year targeting low income earners in the county.
Pre-engineered houses being introduced by KRE will cost half the prices their concrete counterparts charge and will target the lower middle class.
KRE will early January assemble a model three bedroomed unit at Otonglo outside the lakeside city before proceeding to build 250 units at Obambo, located 12 kilometres away from the CBD, along the Kisumu-Bondo road.
KRE director Wycliffe Abok said that Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) manufactured at the Coast comprises ready built partitions which are just assembled by experts with minimal training on site are to be used.
The SIPs technology needs less than a month to put together at half the normal cost.
The real estate player is also looking to embrace use of interlocking bricks whose implementation has been successful in Brazil, India and closer home in South Africa to cut costs for cheaper houses.
KRE is partnering with the county in the ambitious Kisumu Urban plan to overhaul the informal settlements. The technology will be used in Obunga to phase out the tin houses and minimise land use through construction of high rise buildings.
It is a form of prefabricated units popular with Housing Finance initiatives in Kiambu, Nairobi and recently adopted in Homa - Bay County.
Abok said that negative perceptions held by locals have hindered the adoption of the alternative technologies which he said would reduce housing shortage in the county at a relatively low costs.
“Contrary to prevailing beliefs that the houses are weak and doubts that the SIPs system for example, lasts up to 90 years without a crack should not be a question since this system has been used before and no such cases have been reported so far.
A three-bedroomed house takes between three and four weeks to put up and would cost as little as Sh1.5 million as compared to Sh3 million for alternative counterparts at rivaled quality,” said Abok.
Abok also said that if the system will be adopted then definitely it will cut costs in meeting housing demands that, according to him, has outstripped supply in Kisumu.
Abok said “negative perceptions” had locked the technology from picking in western Kenya (former Western and Nyanza provinces and South Rift).