Hotel Runda: When residents stood up against city business magnate

 

If Esmael Mohamed Jibril had had his way, a grand five-star hotel would be standing adjacent to the Bangladesh High Commission and the Romanian Embassy in the upmarket suburb of Runda in Nairobi.

Today, an empty five-acre piece of land surrounded by a concrete wall serves as the only reminder of the lofty dreams of a man who almost overturned the strict zoning and planning code that had for years ensured Runda remained a pristine neighbourhood.

Right networks

Jibril, a prominent businessman and the brother of Sports CS Amina Mohamed, died on Monday while receiving treatment in India. A shrewd businessman with a Midas touch, he turned almost everything he touched into gold. He also had the right connections to make things work for him.

In his eulogy, President Kenyatta described Jibril as “a highly motivated and gifted entrepreneur whose successful businesses employed hundreds of young Kenyans”.

“As a country, we will forever owe a debt of gratitude to Mohamed for his role in making Kenya a better economy and, especially, for the job opportunities he created for our people through his successful commercial interests,” said the President.

Deputy President William Ruto eulogised him as “a highly respected, accomplished, innovative and visionary entrepreneur who made an immense contribution not just to Kenya but Africa as a whole”.

For a man who dined and wined with the high and mighty, the glowing tributes from the President and his deputy did not come as a surprise.

He managed Jibram Investments and was also among the founders of Java, one of East Africa’s most respected coffee houses.

He also had interests in MIA International, a conglomerate of companies involved in real estate, cargo handling and charity work. It also had shares in African Commuter Services Ltd, an airline firm based at Wilson Airport.

Dirty deals

Since we don’t speak ill of the dead, Jibril’s dirty deals were deliberately left out of the eulogies. In 2017, he stunned Nairobi’s super rich when he announced plans to put up a Sh1 billion hotel in the middle of Runda through one of his companies, Paddock Investments Limited.

It was to have 240 rooms spread across four floors, a 400-capacity conference centre, swimming pools and a parking bay for 260 vehicles.

“The hotel will be managed by one of the top internationally branded hotel groups (that) has its own standards in respect of safety and counter-terrorism security,” said the company at the time.

“They will be mandated to comply with the security requirements of the UN agencies as well as the American, Canadian and other embassies based in the area.”

The company – whose directors were Amina Mulik Ali, ARJ Capital Limited, Sudhir Jayantilal Patel and Billow A. Kerrow, with Jibril as chairman – had expected to rake in millions of dollars by doing business with the diplomatic community in the affluent neighbourhood.

On paper, it looked like a solid plan, but there were a couple of problems. First, most of the land in Runda is in form of single half-acre parcels, so there was no open space that could fit a hotel the size they wanted. The only location that had some bit of open space was between a residential complex of villas called Mae Ridge, and Runda Close.

To go around this problem, Paddock Investments acquired 15 adjacent half-acre plots and applied for land amalgamation, which joined them into one property measuring 7.5 acres registered as LR NO 7785/1360-1375.

Commercial land

The company asked the county government to change the use of the land from residential to commercial. The application was submitted on July 21, 2016, almost a year before Jibril announced his plans to the world.

Meanwhile, other investors who had bought into the vision were also planning their own developments around the ‘hotel complex’.

Grove Limited wanted to put up a smaller hotel on LR 7785/1451, while Cappella Limited had plans for a health and fitness centre on LR 7785/34.

“These projects are commensurate with and will certainly advance the services needed in a modern upmarket residential estate, which Runda is,” Dr Kirinya Mwendia, a resident and CEO of Cappella Limited, wrote to the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) on September 15, 2016.

“Such a resort-type hotel product is not currently served in this upmarket area, which has the headquarters of Unep and hosts numerous embassies. All the other hotels in the area are concrete buildings without gardens and planters to embellish and soften the façade,” Mae Ridge Home Owners Association wrote to the Ministry of Lands in support of the project through their chair, Polycarp Igathe.

Interestingly, Mr Igathe would later become the deputy governor of Nairobi and had to deal with Runda residents opposed to the hotel despite all the necessary approvals from the authorities.

In its initial stages, Paddock Investments had applied for water and sewerage connection to the property and an environmental assessment from Nema. But as plans advanced, officials of the Runda Residents Association got wind of the project and protested bitterly.

They wrote to then-Governor Evans Kidero and Nema, claiming that Paddock Investments was acting in breach of security and requirements of controlled development.

“The amalgamation and change of user is against zoning restrictions and is in breach of other applicable special conditions regulating the parent grant of Runda Estate,” the association’s chairman, Isaac Gitoho, told Mr Kidero.

In his response, Jibril said the association’s main concerns on water use, increased traffic and absence of a sewer line had been sufficiently resolved.

“I have good intentions and the area needs such an investment. All the approvals have been above board,” he said, while dissociating his sister, Ms Mohamed, the then-Foreign Affairs CS, from his project.

The issue ended up in court and Paddock Investments was ordered to address the concerns raised by Runda residents, then seek Nema’s approval. That was the last time the matter was ever heard in public.

It’s not clear whether Jibril had abandoned his hotel dream by the time he died, but the high concrete wall on the property tells half the story.  BY DAILY NATION