Woodley residents sue City Hall, Lands ministry over planned demolition

Residents of the Woodley estate in Kibra Sub-County have petitioned the High Court to stop the Nairobi County government from demolishing their houses.

The residents have told the High Court that the county government is attempting to grab their properties as they claim to have bought the houses from the defunct Nairobi City Council.

In a suit filed by lawyer Danstan Omari through the Woodley Residents Welfare Association (WRWA) officials, they have sued the county government and the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development who are the respondents.

The residents say that the projects set to be launched in a month will see homes housing 3,000 residents demolished, together with their investments in the estate.

They say this is an attempt by powerful people to evict the residents and allocate the houses to themselves and their cronies, claiming that no environmental impact assessment has been done and presented to them.

They want the court to stop the county government, through its agents, from doing any act interfering with the peaceful, actual and exclusive possession and enjoyment of the land known as Woodley/Joseph Kang’ethe estate land LR No 209/13539.

The petitioners say that they have lived in the estate for more than 50 years, adding that it has historical and cultural heritage and diversity that needs to be jealously protected.

The said members have known Woodley to be their home where they have built shops, hospitals, schools, and churches, among other social amenities, for their use and benefit of the public.

"Corruption marred the process where outsiders (non-residents) were allowed to buy the houses in total disregard of the existing tenants and consequently the sale was stopped when Woodley residents went to court after continuously being harassed by people who came in with letters as proof of purchase," the petition says.

The petitioners claim that the sale of the said houses was recognised as the same had happened in Makadara and Dagoretti where residents bought the City Council houses in the past and Woodley residents were expecting the same would happen in their case.

The plans to demolish the estate were mooted in 2021 by the defunct Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS).

NMS had written to the residents' association indicating that the administration wanted to start projects in Woodely, beginning with vacant sites inside the estate before embarking on occupied areas.

The arrangement was that the tenants in the estate would be given priority and there was an agreement on how the public participation would be conducted.

"The respondents, without any public participation, intend to suddenly chase the families of the petitioners from the Woodley area and put up the Affordable Housing Project (AHP) otherwise known as urban renewal," the petitioners state.

"Parties were willing to settle the tussle amicably but the (county government) is no longer willing to go the same route but instead intends to permanently, hurriedly and forcefully evict the residents from the said parcel of land in favour of a public project which has been referred to with various names including AHP and urban renewal."