Overview of Mass Housing

In a study of land management strategies for effective urban mass housing in Nigeria, Garba and Salisu, (1992), opined that inadequate supply of land and inadequate access to serviced land in urban areas of developing countries is the most important factor militating against the supply of housing to urban low income households. This inadequate supply and access stems, in most countries from the use of poor and inappropriate frameworks for the management of urban land. They conclude that unless concerted efforts are made to address the land issue, some Nigerian cities may in the nearest future be facing chaos in housing.

 

Ogunshakin and Olayiwola (1992) traced the causal roots of the collapse of mass housing policy in Nigeria to the contradictions in the institutional mechanisms of decision making and implementation process, rather than the essence of the policy per se. The import of this observation is the underlying need to evaluate not only products of public housing (the housing estates), but also the institutional framework and housing delivery process of public housing corporations.

Olugbesan (1998) emphasized that planning sustainable strategies for mass housing cannot be effective outside end- user involvement. Adamu (2005), observed that the public private partnership approaches is the solution to the problem of housing development and it is a global trend in which government takes the role of being an enabler and facilitator while the private sectors takes over the real development of public housing. He further observe d that PPP initiative as is being implemented no doubt could meet the housing demand of the people and can be applicable to any Nigerian cities because of the attractive working environment that exist in the system through mortgage finance for construction and purchase of housing.

 

     Evolution of Mass Housing and its Ideology

There are two notable times/events in history when the world saw a rapid growth of urbanization. One of them was the Industrial Revolution, and the other was the World War (WW1 and WW2).

Historically, the nature and form of urban areas have undergone a long but inconsistent evolutionary process with the most rapid changes coming in the most recent 250 years with rapid urbanization accompanying industrialization. The industrial revolution started in the second half of the eighteenth century, beginning in Western Europe and centered in the UK. The explosion of technological advancement led to rapid development of new machines and systems and more efficient ways (at least in terms of the workforce) of producing goods. This in turn led to increasing demands for manpower and raw materials and drew more and more people to live and work in towns and cities. (Pitts 2004, 8)

The revolution transformed agriculture and the production of goods into an industrial one, and created a shift from the agricultural society to the industrial society. It occurred at a time when goods which were made in houses by individuals were transferred to factories. It affected what was produced, where it was produced and how it was produced. It created a shift from the agricultural society to modern industrial societies. Due to this movement of goods production from houses to factories, people migrated from these rural areas of agriculture to cities in search of new jobs. (Schwab 1992; Rowe 1993; Gottdiener & Hutchison 1994)

Before industrialization, as much as 90 per cent of the population was rurally based; after then, it was as low as 10 per cent. (Pitts 2004, 9). Housing was to be provided for the growing labor force.

As the new towns and cities rapidly developed during the Industrial Revolution the need for cheap housing, near the factories, increased. Whilst there were some men, such as Robert Owen, who were willing to create good housing for their workers, many employers were not. These employers ruthlessly exploited their workers by erecting poor, and often unsanitary, shoddily built houses. Workers often paid high rents for, at best, sub-standard housing. (http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/IR/039a.html)

These mass housing environments which had poor living conditions were characterized as unhygienic, overcrowded and also lacked infrastructures and social amenities.

While new wealth helped finance the improvement of houses in both country and town, rapid increases in house-building to accommodate rural laborers migrating into urban areas led to a marked deterioration in the environment. Terraces of shoddily built dwellings were squeezed into poorly drained sites left over between factories and canal wharves. (Golland, et al 2004. 22). For the industrial revolution, Mass Housing came as an idea to house the urban poor (factory workers) by the factory owners.

The First World War (1914 – 18) proved a major threshold in dwelling design and provision. (Golland, et al 2004. 23). After the war, there was a critically high demand for housing either by people migrating to safe areas in search of shelter or in areas which had been damaged by enemy attacks.

The Second World War (1939 – 45) saw a virtual moratorium on house-building as construction resources were diverted to military works. Governments of England looked to Architects after the 2nd World War to find solutions to housing problems – it was Architects who said the solution was the high rise block (Serageldin, 1988). After which, high rise residential buildings became an architectural discourse.

Urbanism is another development which encouraged the development of high rise structures.

According to Louis Worth, “urbanism was produced in relatively large, densely populated settlements containing heterogeneous people” (Gottdiener and Hutchison 2000, 116)

According to Harvey Molotch (1976), in his essay, The City as a Growth Machine, “A city and, more generally, any locality, is conceived as the real expression of the interests of some land-based elite. Such an elite is seen to profit through the increasing intensification of the land use of the area in which its members hold a common interest. An elite competes with other land-based elites in an effort to have growth-inducing resources invested within its own area as opposed to that of another. Governmental authority, at the local and nonlocal levels, is utilized to assist in achieving this growth at the expense of competing localities. Conditions of community life are largely a consequence of the social, economic, and political forces embodied in this growth machine.”

This growth machines shows why there is a concentration of resources mainly in places where the elite and upper class people in the society reside, and also, due to the intensity of land use in certain areas, the land gains more value hereby increasing the cost of housing in such areas and therefore pushing land developers to develop high rise residential structures.

The sheer magnitude of homeless thousands has required large responses. Limitations of available capital, materials, management, and technical know-how seemed to dictate that governments adopt quick, low-cost solutions in the form of mass housing for low-income groups. (Khan 1988, 9)

 

          Mass Housing In Nigeria

Nigeria was once a country whose major source of income and revenue was from agricultural produce. This came to change when crude oil was discovered in the country. After the oil boom in the 1970s, Nigeria diverted most of its resources to the development of oil refineries, and of present, crude oil is the main source of income and revenue in the country, with little emphasis on agriculture.

This diversion from agriculture to refining of crude oil is what began the rapid urbanization in different developing parts of the country. This is because the main source of income in the rural areas was from agricultural produce but since the government now relied mostly on crude oil for the countries source of income, these rural dwellers have little to live on in the rural areas and therefore migrate to the cities in search of jobs to earn a salary or wage.

As of 2007, Nigeria was the 15th largest producer of petroleum in the world, and of date has one of the fastest growing telecommunication markets in the world, and contains cities with grand avenues which shout out comfort and vitality with pleasing aesthetics and infrastructural facilities. This level and type of development is what makes the people in the rural areas to move to the developing parts of the country, hoping to live a better life.

Due to the vast increase in population in developing parts of the country, different mass housing schemes have been developed and are still in construction around the country. Private investors embark on the construction of flats, duplexes and apartment blocks, while the government develop different mass housing environments to cater for the ever increasing population.

The provision of this mass housing by the government is an answer to providing shelter for its inhabitants, but in most cases, after a while, these mass housing developments deteriorate and become slums which also degrade the urban face of the city. This is because the housing policies and legal framework for housing in the country are insufficient and in cases where there are housing policies, these policies are not adequately implemented.

     Legal Framework for Housing in Nigeria

The Federal housing Authority (FHA) is Nigeria‟s public sector development agency and was established by law, under Decree No. 40 in 1973, and started operations in 1976. it operates across the country and is a parastatal under the Federal ministry of Environment, Housing and Urban Development.

Since its establishment, it has developed a number of estates around the country and it has also been involved in the formation of housing policy for the country.

The FHA has a board of directors, with an executive management team, which oversees its day to day operations. The executive management team comprises of four executive directors in charge of the four main departments of the authority. These four main departments include:

·      Projects

·      Estates

·      Finance, and

·      Management services.

The FHA has a strengthened mandate to:

·         Develop and manage estates on commercial basis in all states of the country, including the Federal Capital Territory

·         Provide sites and services for all income groups, with special emphasis on the low income group

·         Provide low income and rural housing in all the states of the country, and the federal capital territory from funds provided by the federal government and other sources.

The functions and responsibilities of the Federal Housing Authority include:

·         The preparation and submission of proposals for national housing programs to the Government from time to time

·         To execute housing programs as may be approved by the government

·         Develop and manage real estates on commercial and profitable basis nationwide

·         To provide site and service schemes for the benefit of all income groups

·         To make recommendations on aspects of urban and regional planning, electricity, sewage and water supply, as may be relevant to the execution of approved housing programs, to the government.

 

The offices of the Federal Housing Authority is seen to be a very active place when visited on a daily basis, but when it comes to the execution of policies in the housing environments, there is little or no attention given to such developments. Housing policies, legal frameworks and rules and regulations which have been implemented by the Federal Housing Authority are half hazardly followed up to ensure that they are strictly adhered to. Due to this, individuals have an opportunity to work around such policies without obeying / abiding by them and as such, housing environments are developed without proper specifications. And in the case of contractors developing mass housing environments for the FHA, because of lack of proper supervision / inspection, the developments are half hazardly done with inferior / insufficient building materials.

There is absence of a comprehensive legal framework to support delivery of government housing objectives in the country.

 

      Mass Housing in Abuja

There are several Mass Housing Schemes being developed in Abuja at the moment, most of which have either been sold off part by part by the federal Government to private individuals, or to private investors.

The different Mass Housing Schemes have been grouped into three categories according to the initial idea of construction. These include:

§  Initial Government Schemes

§  Re – settlement Schemes

§  Private intervention schemes

The initial Government Schemes includes different mass housing schemes which were started up from its offset by the Government, all the way through the construction stage, up to the finishing, but of recent have been contracted off by the Government to private firms. Mass housing area under this include:

·         Gwarimpa Housing Estate – This housing estate is the largest single housing estate in Nigeria, and is said to be the largest of its kind in Africa. It has different housing units. It has semi detached duplex, detached duplex, apartment buildings, and also detached bungalows.

·         Federal Housing, Lugbe – This housing estate contains bungalows only and they range from two bedroom semi detached flats, two bedroom flats and three bedroom flats.

·         Kado Estate – Kado estate comprises of only semidetached duplex houses. All of which are three bedroom duplex.

·         Games Village – Games village was originally built for the 8th All African Games which was held in Nigeria in 2003.

 

Re – Settlement Schemes – Nigeria is a country with many diverse cultures of over 200 but with three major ethnic groups (Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo). The areas which had been selected by the government for development of the city of Abuja was already inhabited by the Gbagys, who are the original settlers. Due to this, the settlers had to be displaced from their place of origin, and the FCT Act of 1976 placed the entire land mass of the FCT under the control of the Federal Government. The idea was to create a Capital which did not have a particular cultural tie, and was ethically neutral. The federal government, after this, decided to construct different housing units in different parts of Abuja for these original settlers to be relocated and re – settled.

The Master Plan provided the following options for the relocation of existing residents:           

-          Relocation outside the FCT. This option would probably incur greater expense, having the potential to create greater socio-cultural impacts on the people involved. This option has been discarded by FCDA.

-          Relocation within the FCT. Although this may be the most straightforward solution, it will probably not be applicable to all the residents being relocated. Given that virtually all of the population to be relocated presently live in rural areas, it seems likely to assume that most, if not all, may prefer less urban accommodations.

-          Relocation within the FCT, to villages which already have some of the basic community facilities. This is probably the most reasonable option, since it might better address the potential socio-cultural preferences of the population involved, and might increase the numbers of people who could potentially be served through existing community facilities.  (COHRE & SERAC, 2008)

The idea of which was to accommodate the Gbagy people who are the original settlers of the area (Abuja), and include:

-          Kubwa

-          Apo

-          Galuwi/Shere

-           Wasa

-          Anagada

Private Intervention Schemes – The private intervention schemes are those which from the offset of construction have been handed over to private firms by the federal Government. In this case, the federal government selects an area and sells off plots of land to these private firms at a subsidized rate, after which the firm designs and constructs the housing units. These include:

-          Sun City – Sun City comprises of apartment buildings, duplex and bungalows. The apartment buildings are two bedrooms, there are four bedrooms duplex, detached, two bedroom semi detached bungalows and three bedroom detached bungalows.

-          Sunny Ville

-          Prince and Princess

-          Katampe Housing Estate – The housing estate at Katampe is made up of houses with 2 bedroom flats, 3 bedrooms, 4 bedrooms detached and also 4 bedrooms semi detached buildings.

The private intervention schemes usually concerns private investors and corporations who want to see a big return / profit from their developments and therefore ensure that their environments are well taken care of, provided for and a certain level of comfort maintained. This in return is a reason for the high cost of housing in such areas, because these services are lacking in governmental schemes and are therefore seen as a plus in housing developments. It is because of the situation or the state of which the governmental housing schemes are in that they have been selected for analysis.