The Environment and Land Courts has stopped the eviction of over 550 residents of Animal Farm Association Settlement scheme located in Southern By-pass Nairobi.

Justice Oguttu Mboya barred the National Environment Management Authority from evicting the said families pending the hearing of the application challenging the said eviction.

“An Interim Conservatory Order be and is hereby Issued to bar or prohibit the Respondents herein, or anyone of them, from carrying out and undertaking the imminent Eviction or Evacuation of the Petitioners or their Families from the Suit Property, pending the Inter Partes Hearing on the return Date,” read the order.

The residents of the said settlement scheme through eight petitioners sued the National Environment Management Authority, the Attorney General, the Chief Land Registrar and the Nairobi City County after they received a notice to vacate the said premises.

The residents were issued with a 30-days’ notice on February 9, to vacate the suit property by the National Environmental Complaints Committee on grounds that suit property belonged to another person.

The committee had further claimed that the informal settlement is next to Nairobi National Park and that the residents had invaded the park and vandalized the fence and also engaged in innumerable crimes such as rape and theft.

Through lawyer Justus Mutunga, the residents however claim they have lived in the Suit property for over three decades having been resettled there in 1986 by the then President the late Daniel Moi.

Prior to being moved to the suit premises, they claim that they had been settled at Mbagathi road (now Raila Odinga Road) but were asked to leave the said property to pave way for the expansion of Mbagathi Hospital.

They say over time they have established their houses and businesses on the property, which they have known to be their home and source of their livelihoods.

The Petitioners claim over time they have sought the assistance of successive government regimes for the issuance of title documents and despite on various occasions having been asked to contribute money for processing of their title documents, their desires have fallen on deaf ears.

“In 1997, the then Provincial Administration through the area Chief asked the residents of the Settlement to contribute Kshs. 2,000/- each for the purpose of processing title documents, a request which the residents duly complied with,” they argue in court documents.

The residents accuse National Environment Management Authority of arrogating to itself powers that have not been conferred upon it either by the Constitution or Statute.

“Whereas the notice cites grounds that would otherwise be perceived as protecting public interest, the said notice advances personal interests of a private person that the 1st Respondent has conveniently declined to disclose,” they argue in court documents.
Justice Mboya directed the application to be heard inter partes on March 22.