The document summarizes the establishment of a physical address system for Nairobi County, Kenya using GIS. Key points: 1. The project aims to assign addresses to all properties in Nairobi to improve services like emergency response, mail delivery, and revenue collection. 2. GIS is used to digitize properties, name and code streets, and assign unique addresses. The county is divided into zones and properties numbered sequentially along streets. 3. Establishing a complete address database and signage system will make navigation easier and allow various social and economic benefits like improved utility services and commerce.

1. USE OF GIS IN ESTABLISHMENT OF A
PHYSICAL ADDRESS SYSTEM
A CASE OF NAIROBI COUNTY – KENYA
Muriithi Ngari PETER, Kenya
Directorate of Metropolitan Planning and Urban Development
Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development

2. PROJECT BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT (1)
 Since, time immemorial descriptive addresses have helped people to orient themselves through references to
major roads, landmarks, marketplaces and religious buildings, among others.
“Round about Near Koja Mosque”
“Behind Nakumatt Lifestyle Supermarket”
“Next to vision Plaza, along Waiyaki way.”
“30m from the Bus stop”
“5TH House on the Right”
“Ask the Butcher on your left hand side”
“Next to the Retail shop”
“Front of the power transformer”
“Call when you get to the Junction”

3. PROJECT BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT (11)
 The expansion and growing complexity of societies, however, has created a growing need for clearer identifiers of place.
The need for better territorial knowledge and the ability to precisely locate destinations has given rise to the development
of physical addresses worldwide.
 Globally, this culminated in the launching of the “Addressing the world - An Address for Everyone” initiative in 2009; aimed
at raising awareness of the importance of physical addresses and providing everyone with a physical address.
 In Kenya, the Government has long expressed a need for a single, authoritative, physical address registry; that
unequivocally identifies its citizens for several reasons - tax collection, statistical requirements, safety and security service,
social services.
 To this end the Government , through the Directorate of Urban Planning and Metropolitan Development and The County
Government of Nairobi, started a project towards establishment of such a system.
 The project covers the entire Nairobi City County; with an administrative area of approximately 696 km2 and is currently at
70% complete.

4. WITH NO SYSTEM OF STREET COORDINATES AND NO BASELINE INFORMATION, THEN THE
CITY WAS FACED BY THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS;
• How do you find your way around a constantly growing city?
• How do you dispatch Ambulances, firemen, and law enforcement personnel quickly?
• How do you send mail and messages to private homes?
• How do you locate urban facilities and infrastructure?
• How do you pinpoint breakdowns in water, electricity, and telephone systems?
• How do you improve on-site collection of water and electricity bills?
• How do you set up an efficient land rates collection system?
 Physical/ Street addressing is an exercise that makes it possible to identify the location
of a property on the ground, that is to “assign an address” using a system of maps and
signs that give the property’s and street’s numbers and names.

5. WHY PHYSICAL ADDRESSING
 Physical addressing involves the naming of streets and numbering of the properties along them. This is to
make it easy to locate parcels of land or properties in space to ultimately facilitate navigation.
 In most industrialized countries, physical addresses are part of everyday life. Yet, in developing countries,
physical addresses frequently exist only in few major city centers. In such countries, many streets have no
names and properties are not numbered.
 According to the World Bank Institute , “…without the address system, not only do businesses find it difficult
to reach a large proportion of their potential customers, but Government also faces tremendous challenges in
delivering a wide array of social services”…
 There is no doubt that physical addressing; the network of road names and property numbers, forms an
important basis upon which society can function. A proper address infrastructure must be recognized as a
key driver of economic, social and political development.

6. KEY BENEFITS OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS (1)
Efficiency and cost effectiveness in:
1. Provision of social welfare services
(e.g. disaster relief programmes, housing,
income generation, basic education, health,
water and sanitation, etc.)
2.Utility service providers in setting and collecting tariffs for services
(water and electricity)
3.Mail distribution and delivery
4.Emergency (fire) and health service providers
(ambulance) and reinforcement of national security
operatives and by easily locating premises

7. KEY BENEFITS OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS (11)
 Facilitation of:
1. Billing and collection of property rates
2. Integrated planning and implementation of government policies and programs - the
data, when updated regularly becomes vital information for planning investment,
rehabilitation/ maintaining facilities and infrastructure and for effective mobilization of
local resources (e.g. Integrated security, intelligence and surveillance system, Assets
data hub/ management system, Vehicle registration tracking system, National
population and housing census, National spatial data infrastructure (NSDI),
Companies and investors portal, e-government services, etc.)
3. Emergency preparedness and response - e.g. natural disasters (related to severe
weather); mass casualties incidents (explosions, fire); disease outbreaks, etc.

8. KEY BENEFITS OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS (111)
 Assist the growth of commerce and industry – i.e. opening up employment
opportunities in direct marketing, e-business and other point of location based
activities (“turn-by-turn” navigation)
 Complements other slum upgrading actions – street addresses provide the
evidence that the slum population permanently resides in the neighborhood and is
formally recognized by the city authorities and thus lead to a kind of collective
regularization of the slum which, even if limited in scope, often bears fruit much
sooner than difficult and slow-moving land tenure regularization projects
 Provide impetus to the formulation of a National Addressing Policy – geared
towards provision of uniform way of labeling of properties (land/ houses), naming
streets and labeling of roads with signposts; which would be used for planning
and other multi-sectoral purposes

9. PROJECT AIM AND OBJECTIVES
Project Aim To provide an address to every property in Nairobi City County for purposes of making it
easier to:
 Locate residents, places (homes, businesses, offices) and events;
Dispatch emergency services (ambulances, fire trucks, police);
Expedite postal and package delivery;
Facilitate the work of utility services operators (water, sewer, electricity);
Process property rates billing and collections thus enhancing the development and
delivery of services provided to rate payers; and
Improve urban management through the use of tools for planning and managing
municipal services by technical departments
Project Objectives The principal objectives of the project can be summarized in the following items:
Assigning names/ codes to streets
Establishing property frontages and assigning address numbers in relation to named/
codified streets

10. ESTABLISHMENT OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS SYSTEM DATABASE (I)
1. Base map preparation - The
availability of an accurate city wide
baseline GIS map is an integral
component of this assignment
2. Generation of physical addressing
zones - it is vital that the zones (their
boundaries and names) are CLEAR,
UNAMBIGUOUS and ENDURING.
Nairobi has been divided into 6
physical addressing zones BASED
ON the EXISTING TRUNK ROADS
Source: UREPI, 2014
NORTH
Kiambu County
Machakos County
Kajiado
County
Key:
Trunk roads
County Boundary
Physical Addressing Zones
(Proposed)

11. ESTABLISHMENT OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS SYSTEM DATABASE (II)
3. Codifying (and naming) streets and digitizing properties along the street
 All streets are assigned codes irrespective of whether they have names or not
 coding based on the orientation of street segments. N-S streets coded using odd numbers in relation to the selected reference axis. W-
E street coded using even number in relation to each respective N-S streets that they emanate from.
4. Assigning property numbers
 Numbering of MAIN ACCESS/ ENTRIES TO PROPERTIES
 Odd numbers from 1 will be assigned to plots on the LEFT HAND SIDE of the road and even numbers from 2 assigned the RIGHT
HAND SIDE of the road
5. Preparation of street property address maps
6. System design, development and implementation (field data collection & entry)
 Designed and built around the goal of allowing absolutely inexperienced users to utilize the fairly advanced ArcGIS functionality
 Flexible to support future updates and various platforms
7. Conducting door-to-door address verification and confirmation exercise
 To be conducted by trained data verifiers
 This will validate the correctness of the information that has been gathered so far by the Project team
 Primary data collection

13. ESTABLISHMENT OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS SYSTEM DATABASE (III)
8. Updating of the Integrated Nairobi City County properties address geodatabase
 Data cleaning
 Quality control and assurance
9. Assigning property numbers
 Numbering of MAIN ACCESS/ ENTRIES TO PROPERTIES
 Odd numbers from 1 will be assigned to plots on the LEFT HAND SIDE of the road and even numbers from 2 assigned the RIGHT
HAND SIDE of the road

14. ESTABLISHMENT OF A PHYSICAL ADDRESS SYSTEM DATABASE (IV)
10. Assigning signage (Uni-Directional, Bi- Directional and Multi-Directional)
 Signage is required to enable members of the public to readily identify and locate address sites on the ground.
 Signage also helps ensure that the assigned address numbers, road names, and physical addressing zones become
accepted and are used by the community

15. Practical Demonstration - Codifying (and naming) streets and digitizing properties along the street
15
STREET CODE STEET NAME CLASS START END STREET WIDTH NO OF LANES ONSTREET
PARKING
PAVEMENT
TYPE
STREET
DIRECTION
ZONE CODE
0001 Wabera Street ? City Hall Way Banda Street ? 2 Angle Tarmac Bidirectional 01
 GIS map displaying the
location of Wabera Street
Attribute table generated
form the field work survey

16. Practical Demonstration - Assigning property numbers
16
 GIS map displaying the location of main property entry
points along Wabera Street (DISPLAYED AS YELLOW DOTS)
 Note the property/ cadastral boundaries (DISPLAYED IN
GREEN)
 Note the assigned property numbers (DISPLAYED IN
ORANGE)
Attribute table generated form the field work survey
ASSIGNED
PROPERTY
ADDRESS
ZONE
CODE
LR. NO SUB-
COUNTY
WARD PLOT SIZE
(Ha)
LAND USE PROPERTY
STATUS
BUILDING
NAME
OWNERSH
IP
OWNER’S
NAME
PIN. No. EMAIL PHONE POSTAL
ADDRESS
WATER SEWERAGE ELECTRICITY
01 01 209/5409 Starehe Nairobi
central
0.40 Commercial Developed Jubillee
Insurance
Company xyz xyz xyz xyz xyz Yes Yes Yes
02 01 209/4875 Starehe Nairobi
central
0.15 Commercial Developed St. Ellis
Building
Individual xyz xyz xyz xyz xyz Yes Yes Yes
04 01 209/5410 Starehe Nairobi
central
0.12 Commercial Developed Individual xyz xyz xyz xyz xyz Yes Yes Yes
06 01 209/2376 Starehe Nairobi
central
0.07 Commercial Developed City House Individual xyz xyz xyz xyz xyz Yes Yes Yes
02
04
06
01

17. THANK YOU