City Hall is targeting to collect an additional Sh5 billion from land rates on its planned crackdown on all development and houses build on existing or proposed roads, railway line, communications, and other civic facilities or public utilities.

Under the plan the county will map and measure all the property sizes and kind of property around the city with the sole purpose of determining how much property owners should pay in rates.

This comes after the Nairobi County Assembly passed the Nairobi City County Regularisation of Unauthorized Development Bill, 2025, that paves way for mapping and documenting all city properties for land rates

The bill which is awaiting the signing into law by Governor Johnson Sakaja will help the county include more land owners and developers into the valuation roll.

It provides the county the opportunity to regularize all unauthorized developments that still meet the required standards.

Chief Officer for Urban Planning Patrick Onalo explained to The Star that the county is targeting the Eastlands areas of Kasarani, Utawala, Mwiki, Embakasi, Roysambu, Pipeline and other estates with existing unauthorised developments.

He further explained that some of the targeted areas have land that originally belonged to land buying companies or government land that was invaded by squatters but the ownership has been subject to court proceedings.

 “All those areas constitute almost 2 million city residents who live there so with this bill, we can bring the owners and developers on board so that they can get approval for the land they subdivided,” he said

Most of the owners have been fighting for titles, with the county stating that almost all titles have been issued.

“We now want them to submit their building proposals so that we can include in the valuation roll,”

The planning department is expected to carry out a special census of all the buildings and developments in the identified areas.

However, all unauthorized development made on any public land will not be regularized.

This means all development  on existing or proposed roads, railway line, communications and other civic facilities or public utilities will not be regularised.

Unauthorized developments on forest land or river banks and riparian areas as defined by the Environmental Management and Coordination Act will also not be regularized.

The land will instead be recovered for its originally intended purpose.

Once the bill is signed into an Act an Advisory Committee and Regularization Technical Committee will be formed and all owners expected to receive notices to make applications for regularization.

All plans and documents must be prepared by relevant qualified, registered and licensed professionals

After collecting Sh3.28 billion from land rates during the 2024/25 Financial Year, the county is optimistic that it can raise the collections with an additional Sh5 billion.

The county revised its land rates in January, 2025, with the new rates calculated based on land size and value.

The new rates range between Sh2,560 to Sh4,800 annually, with residential, commercial, and agricultural plots taxed at 0.115 per cent of their value.