The new public walkway around Hora Lake in Bishoftu, Ethiopia, is simple, elegant, and well used.

The arrest of Nairobi's Chief Officer of Urban Planning is another reminder of why transparency in development approvals matters. The Nairobi City County Regularization of Unauthorised Developments Act, 2025, assented to on 29 July 2025, states that: “A register maintained by the County Executive Committee Member under this Act shall be open to the public for scrutiny and the Executive Committee Member shall publish guidelines for public access to that register.” Opening up the books of City Hall would help the public understand what is being approved, where, and under what conditions. The same should apply nationally. The NCA publishes approved projects, but the system is difficult to search, not regularly updated, and has no practical way to track recent developments. We’ve been trying to make this kind of information easier to surface through our Community page.

Imagine buying a 1 acre plot in Kileleshwa for KES 3.2M in 2001. The average price today is KES 336.2M. A 10,406% increase 😳

This is Stellar Bay, a proposed 30-floor residential tower coming up along Mpaka Road in Westlands targeting investors, young professionals, and the short-stay/Airbnb market. It’s being built on the former Westlands Post Office block.

Update: Park isn't included. This is Stellar Bay, a proposed 30-floor residential tower coming up along Mpaka Road in Westlands targeting investors, young professionals, and the short-stay/Airbnb market. It’s being built on the former Westlands Post Office block.

With plans now underway for a major new JKIA terminal, we hope it feels unmistakably Kenyan. Some airports are memorable because they feel connected to the place they are in. You land once and the architecture, materials, lighting, even the atmosphere stays with you. PDX is a great example of this. It would be nice to see Kenya’s main gateway lean into that kind of identity and character.

Hello surveyors 👋 We’ve added a new Topographical Sheet Index layer. You can now use Google search directly on the Plotwise map to quickly find which Kenya 1:50,000 topographical sheet/grid a location falls under. Check it out: plotwise.co/map

As it should be.

For visual reference, the green area shows where the parking lot is, the blue area marks the former location of Ukay Center, and the pink line indicates a drain that carries water from the river on the opposite side of Peponi Road.

Some maps shared by the media and government about flood-prone areas are too broad to be useful on the ground. Labeling an entire neighborhood like Parklands as “at risk” doesn’t help much compared to identifying specific streets or low-lying sections. It would be far more helpful if Nairobi County published location-level data. We’ve included waterways mapped by OpenStreetMap contributors, covering rivers, streams, drains, and canals. It’s far from perfect, but it provides a general picture of the city’s drainage network. For example, sections of First Parklands Avenue are known to experience flooding due to a nearby drain or canal that passes through the area. This kind of street-level detail is what would make official flood mapping far more useful.

If you are planning to buy a plot in Nairobi, Kiambu, Machakos, or Kajiado, this is a good time to visit the area and determine whether it lies on reclaimed wetland or along a long-forgotten riverway. The rains are here to guide you.

💬 New on Plotwise: Community posts are now interactive. You can now comment on any post with an anonymous note or photo to share updates. plotwise.co/community