A building permit or construction permit is an official approval issued by government agency that allows you or your contractor to proceed with a construction or remodelling project on your property. It is intended to ensure that the project plans to comply with local standards for land use, zoning, and construction. These standards are intended to ensure the safety of current and future owners and occupants and to provide enforcement of zoning and land-use policies.
The specific issues that the building permit process may address include structural integrity of the framing work, zoning, sanitation, water, and sewer lines, fire protection, and electrical service.
The following is a list of the nine steps for obtaining a building permit in Kenya:
- Obtain a survey plan from Survey of Kenya
- Obtain a project report (Environmental and Social Impact Assessment) from an environmental expert
- Obtain approval of the environmental impact study from National Environment Management Authority (NEMA)
- Submit and obtain approval of the architectural plans from county government
- Submit and obtain approval of the structural plans
- Obtain stamps on architectural and structural plans from the Nairobi City County – Development Control Section
- Apply for project registration with the National Construction Authority (NCA)
- Receive on-site visits by NCA to check for compliance and obtain invoice
- Submit payment receipt, obtain preliminary compliance certificate and compliance certificate
Obtain a survey plan from Survey of Kenya
- Visit the Survey of Kenya offices in the ministry of land departments to obtain a survey plan. A survey plan from Survey of Kenya is a required document when applying for a building permit.
- Request for Folio Registry number search: You are required to provide proof of land ownership when requesting for the survey plan. One is shown the survey plan to confirm that it is the one they have requested for then issued with a payment authorization slip to go and pay for the survey plan.
- Proceed and pay for Folio Registry number search: You will be required to produce an authorisation of payment for this service. You will be charged Ksh 150 for the numbers search.
- Confirm availability of survey plan and Pay for survey plan: After the search is done and availability confirmed. You are to pay Ksh 650 for the survey plan.
- This process takes one day to complete.
Obtain a project report (Environmental and Social Impact Assessment) from an environmental expert
Once the survey plan has been obtained, a licensed environmental expert must be hired to prepare a project report to be submitted to NEMA.The project report can take a period of 3 to 5 days to complete.
Obtain approval of the environmental impact study from National Environment Management Authority (NEMA)
- Following the enactment of new Environmental Management and Co-ordination Act on February 27, 2009, companies now have to obtain approval of projects from the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA). Projects of all risk categories are subject to approval and an environmental impact assessment (EIA).
- It takes 30 days on average to get the approval. The cost is set at 0.05% of warehouse value, prior to February 11, 2009, the fee rate was 0.1% of warehouse value.
Submit and obtain approval of the architectural plans from county government
Submit architectural plans at the county development control office. The required documents to be submitted are the following:
- The proposed development
- A survey plan from Survey of Kenya
- Ownership documents
- Up-to-date rates payment receipts
- Structural plans
- Pay for permit fees: The County government will issue an invoice that must be paid, this can take up to 2-3 weeks to be obtained.
- Obtain architectural plans approval notification
- Submit architectural plans for signing
- The drawings are reviewed by all relevant departments simultaneously.
- When all signatures have been obtained, the approved plans are scanned and uploaded in the system so that they can be retrieved by the architect
- Obtain authenticated architectural plans and construction permit
- Building permit fee is based on the size of the building and varies from county to county depending on how its applied. e.g. some counties charge a specific amount per square meter.
Submit and obtain approval of the structural plans
- Visit the county’s development control office and follow the following steps:
- Submit structural plans
- Obtain structural plans approval notification
- Submit structural plans for signing
- Obtain authenticated structural plans
- With approved drawings, construction may start while the application for a building permit is being processed.
- The following documents are to be submitted for approval
- project plans
- architectural drawings
- Location survey of property documents and others.
- It takes approximately one day for approval.
Obtain stamps on architectural and structural plans from the Nairobi City County – Development Control Section
Once the plans have been approved, the architect must submit hard copies of the plans to be stamped by the County Government, even after submitting the documents online. The engineer must also do the same after the architect’s plans have been stamped. The engineer does not have to wait one month like the architect to bring in the hard copies.It takes approximately ten days for approval.
Apply for project registration with the National Construction Authority (NCA)
- The building company then has to register the proposed construction project with the National Construction Authority (NCA) and fill a project registration form providing details of the construction work. The Project registration form Can be downloaded from the NCA website
- It takes around a week to obtain the compliance certificate.
- Upon submission of the application, the building company receives a temporary certificate that testifies the registration is under process.
- The building company submits the project registration form to the authority with several documents listed below.
- Authenticated architectural plans (original)
- Authenticated structural plans (original)
- NEMA approval (Simple copy)
- Bill of quantities (Simple copy)
- contract/agreement (Simple copy) It should be duly signed by both the contractor and the client
- Contractor’s registration certificate (Simple copy)
- Quantity surveyor’s practicing certificate (Simple copy)
- Architect’s practicing certificate (Simple copy)
- Engineer’s practicing certificate (Simple copy)
- The building company will then be issued with an invoice on the amount of levy it should pay the authority at selected bank accounts, which are posted on the NCA website. The levy is 0.5% of the total cost of the project (percentage applicable to projects with a value of over Ksh.5,000,000).
- It takes approximately one day for approval. The approval is done free of charge.
Receive on-site visits by NCA to check for compliance and obtain invoice
- Once the application has been made, there is a site-inspection to check for compliance of the construction site against the approved plans and the NEMA clearance.
- After this site inspection, the applicant will receive an invoice showing the amount to be paid.
Submit payment receipt, obtain preliminary compliance certificate and compliance certificate
- Once payment is made, then a provisional certificate of compliance, valid for 90 days, is given to the applicant. If later, there are no violations of compliance, then the final compliance certificate will be issued
- It takes approximately seven days for approval.
