Abstract
Sustainability has been and continues to be the one recurring topical issue the world over. Governments all over are turning serious attention towards the provision of sustainable urban housing for their urban populace. This they have realised holds the key to leading developmental growth for their economies. Building professionals are now confronted everywhere on green building and construction Ghana as a lower middle income country is grappled with a huge housing demand giving rise to a thriving real estate sector in the capital city. The houses they produce come with exhorbitant cost due to the fact that most of these building features are imported in addition to poor planning and design construction. The paper evaluates the occupiers of this estates house their perception on sustainable housing solutions and their satisfaction levels in the dwellings. Again it sought to investigate the building performance in meeting the occupant’s desired comfort. The study adopted the case study as the most appropriate with quantitative methods and random sampling techniques in sample size and questionaire administration. Data collected were analysed by the spps analytical tools and results presented in tables bar and pie charts. Likert scale ranking from 1-5 were used to rank satisfaction with Habitability Index (HI)formula used determine the actual satisfaction levels. Results indicated that majority of occupiers were aware of sustainability issues. Whilst they acknowledge the opportunities offered they were reluctant in making extra expenditure to get these sustainable solutions. Satisfaction levels were high for site planning, and neighbourhood landscape obtaining Habitability Index above 80%. Provision of natural ventilation, natural lighting, use of local materials energy efficient design and rain water harvesting received satisfaction levels of HI below 50%. The study thus recommends amongst others aspects that further education should be carried out by the key stakeholders on housing delivery; government should foster practising sustainable housing by public private partnerships and offering various incentive packages to participants; and government should establish a regulatory body to oversee the operations of real estate developers. This study would provide vital information on the perceived indicators of Real Estate occupants in Ghana.
Highlights
IntroductionAccording to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (2015), the human footprint on the planet, defined as a measure of how much humans are using the earth’s natural resources, can be put into six categories: (1) a measure of carbon emissions, (2) amount of cropland used, (3) amount of grazing land used, (4) the extent of forests required, (5) the fishing ground required, and (6) the amount of built-up land required structures, transportation, dams etc
Even though there has been concerns about the environment all over the world, the growing issues of global warming in the past three decades has ignited the urgent need to address this threat to our planet
In order to contextualize the negative effect of the human footprint on the planet, it is important to address the concept of bio capacity, defined as the ability of a given biologically productive area such as the earth to generate renewable natural resources, provide land for humans to build on, and absorb spill over wastes such as carbon emissions (Green Facts 2015; World Wildlife Fund (WWF) 2015)
Summary
According to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (2015), the human footprint on the planet, defined as a measure of how much humans are using the earth’s natural resources, can be put into six categories: (1) a measure of carbon emissions, (2) amount of cropland used, (3) amount of grazing land used, (4) the extent of forests required, (5) the fishing ground required, and (6) the amount of built-up land required structures, transportation, dams etc. In order to contextualize the negative effect of the human footprint on the planet, it is important to address the concept of bio capacity, defined as the ability of a given biologically productive area such as the earth to generate renewable natural resources, provide land for humans to build on, and absorb spill over wastes such as carbon emissions (Green Facts 2015; WWF 2015). There is a need to develop sustainable practices in the design and construction of our buildings to meet the shortfall in the bio capacity of the earth
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