According to the group’s chairman Jonathan Jackson, the project has stalled following delayed approvals from the Nairobi City Council, thus affected the implementation plans. The delay in the processing of construction permits by some county governments such as Nairobi and Kiambu, continues to affect developers by prolonging project implementation timelines. The delays have mainly been because of the e-permit system downtime, inadequate staffing, and suspension of planning committees of the Nairobi, Kisumu, Kiambu, and Mombasa County Governments. Currently, construction permits in Kenya can take as long as two years, and the lack of improvements of the administration system has continued to cripple the ease of doing business in the construction industry. In October, the delay in permits prompted the industry players such as the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) and the Kenya Private Developers Association (KPDA) to call for an immediate resolution of the matter (see Cytonn’s Q3’2019 Market Review for more information on this). The value of building approvals for the first half of 2019 (January to June) increased by 20.3% to Kshs 121.3 bn, from Kshs 100.8 bn during the same period in 2018, according to KNBS Leading Economic Indicator October 2019. Delays in the approval system ultimately leads to unnecessarily high development costs for private developers, and is thus a major setback to the real estate sector.