Urban Planning And Development Of Eastleigh District Commercial Centre In Nairobi.

Abstract

There is an implementation gap between the urban planning and design framework of Eastleigh District Commercial Centre EDCC) with the development of the centre leading to higher building densities and deteriorating infrastructural provision rendering both physical and social infrastructure inadequate to support the high building densities and the development of EDCC as an integrated secondary commercial center. This problem was the basis of the aim of my research drawing lessons for planning and design of EDCC based on compliance of developments to the planning ordinances. Different samples were studied in physical infrastructure, social infrastructure and buildings. Samples studied in the physical infrastructure included road and drainage system, water and sewerage system, solid waste management. Those of social infrastructure included business activities in space, education facilities, health facilities, housing facilities, and markets facilities. Building densities as controlled by plot ratio, plot coverage and building line where the elements I studied in building developments. I chose the above samples randomly. From my filed work analysis, I found out that the 2008 policy plan was not implemented hence both physical and social infrastructure is not efficient as envisioned in the policy paper. The building densities surpass the ordinance densities. This influenced my conclusions that developments in EDCC do not comply with the planning ordinances. Therefore, I recommend inclusion of other stakeholders like developers, architects, planners, urban designers, and private sector to be part of the planning team and follow the strategic planning process to the latter. The planning team should also consider developing form based codes to be used in parallel with zoning ordinances as literature shows there is better compliance with three dimensional form based codes than two dimensional zoning ordinances.