Abstract
As the emphasis on sustainability increases among architects and construction professionals, the various ways for achieving sustainability in physical development projects have continued to engage the attention of scholars and researchers across the globe. However, in the context of housing in a developing country like Nigeria, there is a paucity of empirical studies on the sustainability of public housing projects. Therefore, this study aimed at identifying and analyzing the sustainability features of public housing projects in urban areas of Ogun State, Nigeria. A survey of 517 residents in nine public housing estates was conducted between December 2009 and February 2010 in the study area. With the aid of structured questionnaire, interview guide and observation schedule; data were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics and content analyses. Findings show that public housing projects in the study area were evaluated to be sustainable in terms of affordability and building forms responding to site and climatic conditions. The projects were however found to be unsustainable in the use of asbestos-based materials, inadequate provision of domestic spaces and lack of basic social infrastructural facilities. The paper concludes that to achieve sustainability in public housing in Nigeria, there is a need for public housing developers to pay adequate attention to users’ domestic space and basic social infrastructural facilities need in the design, construction and management of housing projects. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s2p523
Highlights
The need for public housing schemes to meet some basic sustainability parameters has continued to be of concern to housing policy makers, developers, experts, and researchers across the world. Savaya et al (2008) explained that since 1987 when the World Commission of Environment and Development Report brought to the fore the issues of sustainable development, experts involved in the design and implementation if social programmes have been exploring strategies for achieving sustainability in such schemes
From the review of literature we found some examples of sustainability assessment models to include: cost-bene¿t analysis (CBA) (Ekins and Vanner 2007); sustainability oriented multi- criteria analysis (MCA) (Kain and Soderberg 2008); life cycle assessment, indicators and scenario planning (Ness et al 2007)
As noted in the introduction, two research questions related to the characteristics of public housing provided in the study area between 2003 and 2010; and the extent to which these characteristics align with sustainable housing initiative were stated in this study
Summary
The need for public housing schemes to meet some basic sustainability parameters has continued to be of concern to housing policy makers, developers, experts, and researchers across the world. Savaya et al (2008) explained that since 1987 when the World Commission of Environment and Development Report brought to the fore the issues of sustainable development, experts involved in the design and implementation if social programmes have been exploring strategies for achieving sustainability in such schemes. The need for public housing schemes to meet some basic sustainability parameters has continued to be of concern to housing policy makers, developers, experts, and researchers across the world. Bond et al (2012) noted that the concept of sustainability is normative and cannot be singularly or categorically defined, and what constitutes sustainability in the context of an individual sustainability assessment needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis. These authors defined sustainability assessment as one aspect of impact assessment that places emphasis on delivering positive net sustainability gains and into the future (Bond et al, 2012)
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