Nigeria plans housing projects targeted at low, medium earners

Nigeria plans to construct housing for low and middle income earners as part of strategies to reduce shortage of accommodation in the Africa’s most populous country, using a nationally acceptable design that reflects diversity of culture and weather in the country.
Babatunde Fashola, minister in charge of housing, while unveiling what he described as a roadmap for housing in the West African country noted that the project with targeting the low and medium income earners.

The minister said aside evolving nationally acceptable designs that respond to and accommodate the country’s diversity, the roadmap also involves standardizing the design towards mass production.
According to the Minister, the process also involves standardizing fittings towards reenergizing local supply chain and economic diversification through Small and Medium businesses adding that this would lead to industrialization of construction which would, in turn help to reduce delivery time from the estimated 18 months to about six months for a standard flat.
He said the deficiency in housing was largely due to the fact that the cost of building was high leading to high cost of both purchase and rent, Fashola said the present roadmap targets the low and medium income earners who, according to him, are first time home owners
The Minister said aside certifying and accrediting Developers from the Private Sector, the roadmap was aimed at proving the workability and national acceptability of the new concept which, according to him, would be supported through Government funding in the “Short Term”.
Describing 100 per cent home ownership by the population of any country as utopian, Fashola declared. “The truth, which we must accept, is that 100 percent home ownership is an ideal, but the reality is that, best practices in places like the UK and Singapore are stories of a mixture of ownership and rental”.
“Success is defined and measured by the increasing number of tenants who become owners and not by the attainment of 100% home ownership because owners today may become tenants tomorrow if they fall on hard economic times, just as tenants today may become owners in a season of prosperity”, he said.
The Minister, who said his thoughts were directed on how to gradually and consistently increase the number of tenants who become owners, with a focus on first-time owners, said that the only way to achieve the thought was through mortgage, adding that the present system whereby people who earn their salary monthly were made to pay rent in advance was abnormal.
“It reinforces the need for a credit system in our real estate sector, where payments for rent are matched not only to the quantum but also the timing of income”, he said adding that people who get paid weekly, monthly or yearly, should pay their rent weekly, monthly or yearly.
According to the Minister, aside relieving a lot of pressure on ordinary working people, it would “allow increased occupancy of many flats that are now empty across our country because people cannot pay multiple year advance rent from weekly or monthly incomes received in arrears”.
Again reinforcing the need for mortgage financing as a means to increase the rate of home ownership in the country, Fashola added that it would both reduce the frustrations of landlords who depend on their houses for income and who are saddled with defaulting tenants on one hand; and the trauma of families with children who are unsure when they will be thrown on the streets on the other hand.
Unfolding the concept, the Minister, who announced the conclusion of “the nationally acceptable designs that respond to and accommodate our diversity”, said the Ministry was able to reduce the myriads of designs from across the country to 21 from which it worked down to 12 and finally to six different designs.
He gave the summary of the designs to include 1,2 and 3 Bedroom bungalows, with court yards, that respond to the climate situation and cultural leanings of the North, to be built in states in the North East, North West and North Central parts of Nigeria and blocks of 16 and 24 flats of 1,2 and 3 bedrooms and Bungalows of 1 and 2 bedrooms to be built in the South-South, South-East and South-West of Nigeria and the FCT.
“These are broad classifications without details of special adaptations to be made in some states, based on our research and the experience of our diverse team of architects in the Ministry who come from all parts of Nigeria”, he said adding that the designs did not contemplate those who wanted duplexes or bigger houses.