The home of Rubaga Cathedral

It has storied apartments and bungalows, most of which are available for rent. The beauty with most accommodation places is that majority of them are surrounded by perimeter walls, with some of them manned by private security guards at the main entrances. Most of the apartments are accommodated in buildings with three to five storeys high.

Most of the residential houses have properly mapped out access roads, making it easy to access your home even in the night by public means especially boda boda.
It can be accessed either via Rubaga Road or Lubiri Ring Road.

Cost of housing
Robert Sentamu, a broker in the area says by virtue of the fact that Kayanja Zone is located near the city centre, it automatically pushes the cost of rent and land high.
“It is one of the few places near town that are well organised with well-maintained access roads. This makes the landlords increase the cost of rent of the houses and apartments available,” Sentamu explains.
Not only is the relatively high cost of rent determined by the strategic location of Rubaga from the city centre but the student influx from St Lawrence University and other technical institutions also partly contributes to the high cost of accommodation.

Sentamu opines that most of the students from the university are foreign nationals who love staying at a stone throw-awaypower from the institution and that this comes with its related costs. Some of the foreign students from countries such as Rwanda, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania, stay with their families.
The cost of rent for a double roomed self-contained house, Sentamu says is between Shs300,000 to Shs400,000 while the cost of a house with at least two of three bedrooms costs between Shs500,000 to Shs800,000.

This, Sentamu asserts, is most times dependent on the proximity of the house from the main road. Renting furnished apartments costs between Shs800,000 to Shs1.5m while single non-self-contained rooms for bachelors and students is in the region of between Shs150,000 to Shs250,000. It is in rare cases that you can get a single room costing below Shs200,000. With land, Sentamu reasons that the bigger percentage of Rubaga has been built up. The remaining empty plots of land are expensive that a 50x100feet plot of land costs between Shs50m to Shs100m or more but that this is determined by the land system and whether the land is sold with or without a land title.

Security of the area
Baker Ssesanga, a resident of the area reasons that because Rubaga is a bit densely populated with people of different nationalities, it led to the establishment of Kayanja Police Station whose stationed officers carry out both day and night patrols to reduce and curb crime. This was mainly because some locals use drugs they acquire illegally from jobless locals who sell them from hideouts.

“When I settled here five years, there were groups of people who broke into people’s houses and stole what they could especially at night. After realising that crime was on the increase, as residents, we decided to lobby for a small police station to be established in the place, it somewhat gave us a sense and feeling of security,” Ssesanga explains, adding that the station has scared away potential criminals to areas such as Ndeeba.

“Much as there is a police station nearby, as residents, we also keep an eye on each other’s premises because there are some people whose jobs dictate that they are away from home for upto a week yet they are lone residents,” he adds.

Cost of living
Faridah Lukwago, resident of the area says as far as home basic needs especially food at Rubaga is concerned, it is affordable because of a number of retail shops and supermarkets and market places at Kibuye.

Kibuye is the nearest market place, besides the temporary gazetted roadside places where locals can buy fresh foodstuffs at relatively cheaper places especially in the evening hours as people retire to their homes.
A bunch of matooke at Kibuye market costs between Shs10,000 to Shs20,000.

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