BLOW TO TYCOON IN BID TO BLOCK HOTEL DEMOLITION.

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Former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko who had vowed not to allow the hotel grab public land.

BY SAM ALFAN.

Tycoon Mike Maina has suffered a blow after a judge dismissed a petition seeking to block Nairobi county government from demolishing his Marble Arch Hotel parking.

The threats to demolish the hotel were made by former Nairobi governor Mike Sonko in 2018 after county officials pulled down a perimeter fence to an adjacent plot, which the tycoon uses as a parking lot for the hotel.

Sonko has claimed that both the hotel and the parking lot stood on public land.

Justice Lucy Mbugua, however, dismissed the petition saying the tycoon failed to exhaust the available dispute resolution mechanism before rushing to court.

“The upshot of the findings of this court are that the suit is not merited. The same is hereby dismissed”, Judge Mbugua ruled.

The judge said Maina through his Muthihi Investments should have moved to the liaison committee before filing the case before the Environment and Land court.

The company moved to court had earlier in the year 2019 lost an application seeking to be allowed to fence part of a perimeter wall that was demolished by the county government.

This is after the county government through lawyer Harisson Kinyanjui opposed the application saying the court should not allow the hotel to fence public land, and the matter was before court. The county has maintained that the disputed land is a parking lot.

Documents filed in court show that the land was initially a public toilet and owned by the Nairobi County Fire Station.

In 2018, the county embarked on a campaign to reclaim grabbed parking bays within the CBD and has since then repossessed over 200 parking slots.

The former governor Sonko put on notice to all land grabbers in the city warning that buildings on grabbed public land will also be demolished.

He added that there is no room for land grabbers in Nairobi and his administration will not relent on its quest to reclaim grabbed land in his County as promised during his campaign.

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