NHC bid to sell parking slots at city affordable homes puzzles owners

Homeowners at a low-cost State housing project in Nairobi have been left puzzled by plans to sell parking spaces in a move that would leave some of them with nowhere to park their vehicles.

State-owned parastatal National Housing Corporation (NHC), which is managing the Affordable Housing Programme project on Park Road, announced on Tuesday that it was selling parking spaces at the project.

But the residents said the government did not disclose parking was excluded from their home purchase deals.

“I am one of the beneficiaries and they now want us to pay for parking yet we were not told of this when we were buying the houses,” one of the residents said.

The project consists of 1,370 units, including one-, two- and three-bedroom houses that were sold for Sh1 million, Sh2 million and Sh3 million respectively.

The NHC is selling 100 square metres-sized parking lots starting from the ground floor up the sixth floor for a reserve price of Sh850,000 per slot at the establishment where 60 percent of the houses were reserved for civil servants with the remaining 40 percent for ordinary Kenyans.

It is also leasing 226 square-metre-sized open parking slots on the ground floor for Sh3,000 each per month.

“NHC hereby invites sealed bids from interested bidders willing to purchase commercial or parking spaces within the Park Road Affordable Housing Project under terms and conditions contained in the bidding document,” said the agency in the Tuesday notice.

The NHC said it would issue ownership titles for the parking slots once it is given full ownership of the houses.

“The title deed for the property has not yet been transferred to the corporation hence sectional titles will be processed at unspecified time when the corporation will have acquired full ownership documents,” said the State corporation.

“Purchasers/beneficiaries of the Park Road Affordable Housing Project will be given preference when allocating the parking spaces.”

Housing PS Charles Hinga could not be reached for comment by the time of going to press.

However, in response to one of the residents who raised the issue with him, the PS said he had directed the NHC to withdraw the advertisement.

“Thank you for being frank with me on the issue of parking at Park Road. I have since directed the managing director at the NHC to withdraw this advert and engage on the way forward,” said Mr Hinga.