An aerial view of Machakos Town. [Photo/ softkenya.com]
Muthwani Ward MCA George Kingori has said that the County Government of Machakos needs to come up with a low-income housing project in order to satisfy the rising demand for housing in Machakos Town.
Speaking during a funeral on Saturday, Kingori noted that the population of the town was growing fast, leading to a high demand for housing thus causing the cost of housing to go up.
This, he said, if not well checked, could lead to mushrooming of informal settlements as residents seek for more affordable housing.
"In Machakos, we have a rising rate of unsettlement which with time we would expect to be there no more. But this can turn out to be the exact opposite if the county government doesn't not chip in and provide affordable housing," said the MCA.
"The increasing demand for housing has led to landlords increasing their rents and it will reach a point where many people won't be able to afford to pay the high rent and end up in slums where houses are cheap,” he added.
The MCA said that the current existing county houses cannot meet the rising demand for low-income housing, seeing that they were designed in the early 1970s to cater for the then population, which was much lower.
The county government, however, is said to have plans to modernise its houses and other estates in order to benefit more people.
However, the move has been met with resistance by the current occupants who see the move as a plan by the county government to evict them from the houses they have lived in for decades.