Interdisciplinary Urban Sociology of Municipal Land Value Capture Betterment Levy Assessment Appeals and Smallholder Plot Subdivision Stalling in Nairobi's Peri-Urban Wards: A Bunching Estimation of Appeal Thresholds

Municipal betterment levies on land value capture are intended to fund peri-urban infrastructure, yet smallholder plot subdivision in Nairobi's wards frequently stalls when assessment appeals are filed. Because no observational data are available, the study characterises the operating characteristics of a bunching estimator under a declared variance structure: between-cluster standard deviation of 6.0, residual standard deviation of 4.5, and intraclass correlation of 0.64. Power was estimated across 2000 replications per design cell for cluster counts of 8, 16, 24 and 32 and effect sizes of 3, 5 and 8 percentage points. The analysis indicates that 54 clusters are required to detect a 5-percentage-point bunching response at 80 per cent power. The framework contributes a design protocol for identifying appeal-threshold manipulation in land value capture systems, and it specifies the conditions under which bunching estimation can distinguish strategic delay from genuine valuation dispute.