Artist’s impression of one of the Longonot Gate homes’ design. Photo/Longonotgate.co.ke
Naivasha has attracted a Sh85 billion housing development that offers residents a chance to own homes in a tourist area.
Dubbed Longonot Gate, the gated development set on 2,400 acres at the foothills of Mount Longonot – a dormant volcano located 70km from Nairobi on Mai Mahiu road – will comprise over 1,500 holiday homes, 18-hole world class golf course and numerous social amenities.
The developer, Longonot Gate Development Ltd., has been selling undeveloped half-acre plots of land to prospective home builders since December 2010 at a price of Sh3.5 million, an amount that has now risen to Sh4 million.
According to the firms’ chairman Lee Karuri, on completion the project will be valued at about Sh85 billion and will create huge economic impact on the area and the country in general.
“When we build all infrastructure, more than 1,500 homes and commercial sites for strategic investors, the value shall be about Sh85 billion. This will create a huge economic impact on Naivasha and Kenya,” Karuri said during the foundation stone laying ceremony held on August 4.
The project will be developed in three phases; Crater Park, Naivasha Gardens and Kingdom City. Individuals who had purchased land in phase one of the project have been given the green-light to embark on construction, which will take five years according to the project manager Ms Consolata Gituto.
Longonot Gate will include holiday homes, an 18-hole golf course (whose construction is under-way with a completion date of 2015), a helicopter landing area, conference facilities, a police post, leisure facilities, retirement cottages, sporting facilities and theme parks.
Plot owners will have the option to build villas, cottages or bungalows of between two and five bedrooms whose architectural plans will be provided by the developer.
Longonot Gate groundbreaking comes soon after another high end project, Sh120 billion Aberdare Hills, was unveiled in Naivasha. Locations such as Naivasha, Thika and Kiambu are increasingly becoming popular among real estate developers keen to build gated communities in tourist areas.
Some of the recently publicised high end developments built for a mix of leisure, lifestyle and tourism include Mt Kenya Holiday Homes near Nanyuki, Great Rift Valley Lodge and Golf Resort, and Sangare Hills and Home Resort in Nyeri.
It’s only in Kenya where (peculiar) citizens built luxury homes at the foothills of a dormant volcano. This is a disaster in waiting! In fact I thought it is common knowledge that Mt Longonot is about to erupt. Just google ‘longonot eruption’.