USE OF GIS IN ESTABLISHMENT OF A

PHYSICAL ADDRESS SYSTEM

A CASE OF NAIROBI COUNTY – KENYA

Muriithi Ngari PETER, Kenya

Directorate of Metropolitan Planning and Urban Development

Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development

PROJECT BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT (1)

Since, time immemorial descriptive addresses have helped people to orient themselves through references to

major roads, landmarks, marketplaces and religious buildings, among others.

“Round about Near Koja Mosque”

“Behind Nakumatt Lifestyle Supermarket”

“Next to vision Plaza, along Waiyaki way.”

“30m from the Bus stop”

“5TH House on the Right”

“Ask the Butcher on your left hand side”

“Next to the Retail shop”

“Front of the power transformer”

“Call when you get to the Junction”

PROJECT BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT (11)

The expansion and growing complexity of societies, however, has created a growing need for clearer identifiers of place.

The need for better territorial knowledge and the ability to precisely locate destinations has given rise to the development

of physical addresses worldwide.

Globally, this culminated in the launching of the “Addressing the world - An Address for Everyone” initiative in 2009; aimed

at raising awareness of the importance of physical addresses and providing everyone with a physical address.

In Kenya, the Government has long expressed a need for a single, authoritative, physical address registry; that

unequivocally identifies its citizens for several reasons - tax collection, statistical requirements, safety and security service,

social services.

To this end the Government , through the Directorate of Urban Planning and Metropolitan Development and The County

Government of Nairobi, started a project towards establishment of such a system.

The project covers the entire Nairobi City County; with an administrative area of approximately 696 km2 and is currently at

70% complete.

WITH NO SYSTEM OF STREET COORDINATES AND NO BASELINE INFORMATION, THEN THE

CITY WAS FACED BY THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS;

• How do you find your way around a constantly growing city?

• How do you dispatch Ambulances, firemen, and law enforcement personnel quickly?

• How do you send mail and messages to private homes?

• How do you locate urban facilities and infrastructure?

• How do you pinpoint breakdowns in water, electricity, and telephone systems?

• How do you improve on-site collection of water and electricity bills?

• How do you set up an efficient land rates collection system?

Physical/ Street addressing is an exercise that makes it possible to identify the location

of a property on the ground, that is to “assign an address” using a system of maps and

signs that give the property’s and street’s numbers and names.

WHY PHYSICAL ADDRESSING

Physical addressing involves the naming of streets and numbering of the properties along them. This is to

make it easy to locate parcels of land or properties in space to ultimately facilitate navigation.

In most industrialized countries, physical addresses are part of everyday life. Yet, in developing countries,

physical addresses frequently exist only in few major city centers. In such countries, many streets have no

names and properties are not numbered.

According to the World Bank Institute , “…without the address system, not only do businesses find it difficult

to reach a large proportion of their potential customers, but Government also faces tremendous challenges in

delivering a wide array of social services”…

There is no doubt that physical addressing; the network of road names and property numbers, forms an

important basis upon which society can function. A proper address infrastructure must be recognized as a

key driver of economic, social and political development.

KEY BENEFITS OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS (1)

Efficiency and cost effectiveness in:

1. Provision of social welfare services

(e.g. disaster relief programmes, housing,

income generation, basic education, health,

water and sanitation, etc.)

2.Utility service providers in setting and collecting tariffs for services

(water and electricity)

3.Mail distribution and delivery

4.Emergency (fire) and health service providers

(ambulance) and reinforcement of national security

operatives and by easily locating premises

KEY BENEFITS OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS (11)

Facilitation of:

1. Billing and collection of property rates

2. Integrated planning and implementation of government policies and programs - the data, when updated regularly becomes vital information for planning investment, rehabilitation/ maintaining facilities and infrastructure and for effective mobilization of local resources (e.g. Integrated security, intelligence and surveillance system, Assets data hub/ management system, Vehicle registration tracking system, National population and housing census, National spatial data infrastructure (NSDI), Companies and investors portal, e-government services, etc.)

3. Emergency preparedness and response - e.g. natural disasters (related to severe weather); mass casualties incidents (explosions, fire); disease outbreaks, etc.

KEY BENEFITS OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS (111)

Assist the growth of commerce and industry – i.e. opening up employment

opportunities in direct marketing, e-business and other point of location based

activities (“turn-by-turn” navigation)

Complements other slum upgrading actions – street addresses provide the

evidence that the slum population permanently resides in the neighborhood and is

formally recognized by the city authorities and thus lead to a kind of collective

regularization of the slum which, even if limited in scope, often bears fruit much

sooner than difficult and slow-moving land tenure regularization projects

Provide impetus to the formulation of a National Addressing Policy – geared

towards provision of uniform way of labeling of properties (land/ houses), naming

streets and labeling of roads with signposts; which would be used for planning

and other multi-sectoral purposes

PROJECT AIM AND OBJECTIVES

Project Aim To provide an address to every property in Nairobi City County for purposes of making it

easier to:

Locate residents, places (homes, businesses, offices) and events;

Dispatch emergency services (ambulances, fire trucks, police);

Expedite postal and package delivery;

Facilitate the work of utility services operators (water, sewer, electricity);

Process property rates billing and collections thus enhancing the development and

delivery of services provided to rate payers; and

Improve urban management through the use of tools for planning and managing

municipal services by technical departments

Project Objectives The principal objectives of the project can be summarized in the following items:

Assigning names/ codes to streets

Establishing property frontages and assigning address numbers in relation to named/

codified streets

ESTABLISHMENT OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS SYSTEM DATABASE (I)

1. Base map preparation - The

availability of an accurate city wide

baseline GIS map is an integral

component of this assignment

2. Generation of physical addressing

zones - it is vital that the zones (their

boundaries and names) are CLEAR,

UNAMBIGUOUS and ENDURING.

Nairobi has been divided into 6

physical addressing zones BASED

ON the EXISTING TRUNK ROADS

Source: UREPI, 2014

NORTHKiambu County

Machakos County

Kajiado

County

Key:

Trunk roads

County Boundary

Physical Addressing Zones

(Proposed)

ESTABLISHMENT OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS SYSTEM DATABASE (II)

3. Codifying (and naming) streets and digitizing properties along the street All streets are assigned codes irrespective of whether they have names or not

coding based on the orientation of street segments. N-S streets coded using odd numbers in relation to the selected reference axis. W-

E street coded using even number in relation to each respective N-S streets that they emanate from.

4. Assigning property numbers Numbering of MAIN ACCESS/ ENTRIES TO PROPERTIES

Odd numbers from 1 will be assigned to plots on the LEFT HAND SIDE of the road and even numbers from 2 assigned the RIGHT

HAND SIDE of the road

5. Preparation of street property address maps

6. System design, development and implementation (field data collection & entry) Designed and built around the goal of allowing absolutely inexperienced users to utilize the fairly advanced ArcGIS functionality

Flexible to support future updates and various platforms

7. Conducting door-to-door address verification and confirmation exercise To be conducted by trained data verifiers

This will validate the correctness of the information that has been gathered so far by the Project team

Primary data collection

ESTABLISHMENT OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS SYSTEM DATABASE (III)

8. Updating of the Integrated Nairobi City County properties address geodatabase Data cleaning

Quality control and assurance

9. Assigning property numbers Numbering of MAIN ACCESS/ ENTRIES TO PROPERTIES

Odd numbers from 1 will be assigned to plots on the LEFT HAND SIDE of the road and even numbers from 2 assigned the RIGHT

HAND SIDE of the road

ESTABLISHMENT OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS SYSTEM DATABASE (IV)

10. Assigning signage (Uni-Directional, Bi- Directional and Multi-Directional)

Signage is required to enable members of the public to readily identify and locate address sites on the ground.

Signage also helps ensure that the assigned address numbers, road names, and physical addressing zones become

accepted and are used by the community

Practical Demonstration - Codifying (and naming) streets and digitizing properties along the street

15

STREET CODE STEET NAME CLASS START END STREET WIDTH NO OF LANES ONSTREET

PARKING

PAVEMENT

TYPE

STREET

DIRECTION

ZONE CODE

0001 Wabera Street ? City Hall Way Banda Street ? 2 Angle Tarmac Bidirectional 01

GIS map displaying the

location of Wabera Street

Attribute table generated

form the field work survey

Practical Demonstration - Assigning property numbers

16

GIS map displaying the location of main property entry

points along Wabera Street (DISPLAYED AS YELLOW DOTS)

Note the property/ cadastral boundaries (DISPLAYED IN

GREEN)

Note the assigned property numbers (DISPLAYED IN

ORANGE)

Attribute table generated form the field work survey

ASSIGNED

PROPERTY

ADDRESS

ZONE

CODE

LR. NO SUB-

COUNTY

WARD PLOT SIZE

(Ha)

LAND USE PROPERTY

STATUS

BUILDING

NAME

OWNERSH

IP

OWNER’S

NAME

PIN. No. EMAIL PHONE POSTAL

ADDRESS

WATER SEWERAGE ELECTRICITY

01 01 209/5409 Starehe Nairobi

central

0.40 Commercial Developed Jubillee

Insurance

Company xyz xyz xyz xyz xyz Yes Yes Yes

02 01 209/4875 Starehe Nairobi

central

0.15 Commercial Developed St. Ellis

Building

Individual xyz xyz xyz xyz xyz Yes Yes Yes

04 01 209/5410 Starehe Nairobi

central

0.12 Commercial Developed Individual xyz xyz xyz xyz xyz Yes Yes Yes

06 01 209/2376 Starehe Nairobi

central

0.07 Commercial Developed City House Individual xyz xyz xyz xyz xyz Yes Yes Yes

02

04

06

01

THANK YOU