CPA Enock Monari/FILE

By City Hall's own count, Nairobi holds about seven million people by day and roughly five million by night.

That gap of some two million people arrives every morning and leaves every evening, and the Central Business District (CBD) sits at the heart of it. After dark, its offices, banks and shops fall quiet.

The CBD is where Kenyans work, trade and deal with government. It is rarely where they live.

That question is now urgent. In July, Governor Johnson Sakaja unveiled the Nairobi City County Development Control Policy 2026.

It would allow buildings of up to 75 floors in the CBD and Upper Hill on qualifying plots, and it promotes denser, mixed-use development within 800 metres of bus rapid transit corridors and commuter rail stations.

The city is preparing to build upwards. What it builds matters as much as how high.

Nairobi City County should use the new policy to to promote the construction of homes, not only offices, in the CBD. Housing in the city Centre would ease the shortage, shorten commutes and keep the centre alive after office hours.

The demand is not in doubt.

The World Bank put Kenya's housing deficit at about two million units in 2022 and estimated that the country needs some 250,000 new homes a year to close it, against roughly 50,000 the market produces.

Developers are responding. Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data show Nairobi approved buildings worth Sh84.1 billion between January and May this year, up from Sh65.9 billion a year earlier, with residential projects making up Sh61 billion.

The question is whether any of that housing will rise in the city centre, on the land best served by roads, water and transport.

The commuter case is just as strong.

Workers travelling in from outer estates lose hours, and a good part of their earnings, to fares and traffic. Affordable flats within walking distance of offices would cut those journeys for some, widen access to jobs and give families back their time.

Other cities have made this shift deliberately. Singapore City's 2019 Master Plan set out to bring more homes into its central area, including Downtown, Marina South and Rochor, so that residents could live closer to their jobs.

Its CBD Incentive Scheme offers developers a higher plot ratio to convert ageing office buildings into homes and hotels.

The lesson is that planning rules can steer private capital towards housing without the state building every flat.

Singapore City also shows that homes alone do not make a neighbourhood. Its central housing works because it sits beside reliable public transport, green space and everyday shops. Nairobi should take the principle and fit it to its own budgets and infrastructure.

Kuala Lumpur is a closer comparison. Its Structure Plan 2040, gazetted in October 2023, identifies 139 areas for redevelopment, many of them ageing brownfield sites, and directs higher-density, mixed-use building towards land around transit stations.

Nairobi's new policy already leans the same way along its rail and bus corridors. The CBD, served by both, is the obvious place to apply it.

The idea is already taking shape on Kenyatta Avenue.

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) plans a Sh30 billion complex on 3.85 acres at the junction of Uhuru Highway and Kenyatta Avenue, a plot that has stood largely idle for years.

Twin towers of 60 and 35 storeys, well within the 75 floors the new policy allows on qualifying plots, would combine offices, a business hotel, serviced residential apartments, retail and conference space.

NSSF’s chief executive, David Koross, says the residential component is central to bringing people back into a CBD that has lost major firms to Westlands and Upper Hill.

If it is delivered, the project will show that people can live at the heart of the CBD, and that the centre can stay busy after dark.

Residents will also change the economics of the city centre. People who live in the CBD buy groceries, eat out, fill pharmacies and go to the cinema in the evenings and at weekends.

That steady demand supports small businesses, creates jobs and makes it worth investing in buildings that now stand empty or half-used.

Some of that stock could be converted rather than demolished. Where it is structurally sound, an older office block can become apartments faster and more cheaply than a new tower can rise.

Conversions must, however, meet strict standards on structural safety, ventilation, natural light, sanitation and fire protection, and the county must enforce them.

The strongest objection is that the CBD cannot carry more people. Unchecked high-rise building would strain water supply, sewerage and roads that already struggle. And if developers build only luxury flats, the centre will price out the very workers who keep it running.

Both risks are real. Neither is a reason to leave the CBD empty at night; both are reasons to plan the change properly.

The Nairobi City County Assembly, together with the county’s-built environment and urban planning departments, should therefore write a residential requirement into the CBD provisions of the new policy, with a share of affordable rental units in large developments.

Approvals should be tied to the proven capacity of water, sewer and transport networks.

Public-private partnerships can deliver homes at different price points, while safe pavements, better street lighting and greenery would make the area liveable. Businesses, property owners, tenants and residents should be consulted before any major redevelopment begins.

None of this means giving up Nairobi's commercial identity. It means extending it.

Nairobi should learn from Singapore City and Kuala Lumpur, not by copying their skylines, but by building a centre that serves people through the day and the night.

Seventy-five floors of empty offices at nine o'clock at night would be a poor use of the new rules.