What is site and service? Why should you care?

August 19, 2022

A site and service scheme basically describes the concept in real estate where there is provision in a subdivision of urban land space for residential buildings, public and social amenities. Site and service schemes were implemented in the 20th century as a way of tackling rapid urbanization. Such a scheme would have provision for basic services such as water provision, electricity, sewer lines and drainage. Implementation was mainly in third world countries in Africa and South America. We have such site and service products at www.kenyapropertyexchange.com

Design of site and service schemes was meant to tackle the urban housing crisis by making it easier for urbanites to own property which they could then develop according to their means. The sites were designed to have a specific housing typology which would be implemented by owners of individual units. Once allocated a unit, there was provision to either develop the property using their own design or using a pre-approved plan. The houses were designed in a modular fashion so that the owners would be able to complete an integral part of the house and move into it while making plans to develop the rest of the house. In this way then, the burden of resource mobilization was eased. Examples of such sites are Dandora in Nairobi and Makongeni in Thika.

Was the concept successful? This is debatable. The schemes were designed to tackle informal settlements in urban areas. The premise was that if the cost of ownership could be lowered, then the pressure of provision of housing by the state would be lessened. Because the typical designs were often small units, they required less resources thus implying that more could be built and their scalability was meant to add to their appeal. However, success was not guaranteed and the concept did not pick off as envisaged. The targeted user sometimes opted to rent or sell instead of dwell in the units due to a myriad of reasons, some related to location and diminished financial capability.

Of what importance is this to us? A common mantra in planning circles is that services precede development. In terms of planning, execution of site and service schemes was top notch. Other factors such as social fabric, economic empowerment and so on might have dimmed the expectation of the project but there are useful lessons to be learnt as well, most importantly that services should precede development. If the converse is true, provision of services becomes expensive, for these and other products please visit www.kenyapropertyexchange.com

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