Extra charges for property owners in the pipeline

Politics and policy

The Physical Planning Bill is intended to replace the Physical Planning Act of 1996. PHOTO | FILE 

By KIARIE NJOROGE

In Summary

• Physical Planning Bill proposes that counties charge development fees on transactions such as change of use, subdivision and extension of buildings.
• If approved by Parliament, the fees collected shall be put into a special fund and used for development of county infrastructure and the provision of basic services.

Property owners face additional levies in a raft of changes that the Commission on Implementation of the Constitution has proposed to promote sanity in the real estate segment.

 

Under the proposals contained in the draft Physical Planning Bill, county governments will charge development fees (at discretional rates) on transactions involving properties, such as change of use, subdivision and extension of buildings.

“Each county government, in consultation with the relevant planning authority, may, by notice in the County Gazette, publish regulations determining the circumstances under which a development fee shall be levied, the rates that shall be payable and the circumstances under which a development fee may be waived,” reads a section of the Bill.

The proposal to introduce development fee comes even before dust settles on a recent proposal by the National Construction Authority to levy a construction fee on projects worth above Sh5 million at the rate of 0.5 per cent.

READ: New levy for developers of Sh5m houses

The Physical Planning Bill is intended to replace the Physical Planning Act of 1996.

If approved by Parliament, the fees collected shall be put into a special fund and used for development of county infrastructure and the provision of basic services.

Waiver of the fee will only mean that the developer will have to shoulder some of the responsibility for construction of public facilities for use by residents.