Challenges to Incremental Housing Development in Ibadan Municipality, Nigeria

Aim: This study examined challenges to incremental housing development in Ibadan municipality with a view to informing policy that could enhance the progressive building process.

Methodology: Data were obtained through questionnaire administration on incremental housing developers in the study area. The sampling procedure involved the stratification of the study area into high density, medium density and low density residential areas. Ten residential areas were randomly selected from the high density and medium density residential areas which are basically inhabited by the low and middle income class - who are the major practitioners of incremental housing development. One of every three incremental building was sampled after the random selection of the first building. A total of 305 incremental houses were sampled of the 915 identified during pilot survey.

Results: The study revealed that lack of accessibility to finance is the most important difficulty against the incremental housing development process, while cost of building materials, land accessibility for house construction and approval of building plans were also highly rated as challenges. Housing finance had the highest RAI of 4.91, 4.90 and 4.92 in the whole study area, high density and medium density residential areas respectively. On the other hand, housing appearance at the earlier stage of incremental construction had the lowest RAI of 2.21, 2.12 and 2.32 in the whole study area, high density and medium density residential areas respectively.

Conclusion: The study concluded that non-availability of proper finance arrangements and policy support for the low and middle income housing needs are the major challenges confronting incremental housing development in the study area.