Urban Compression: Incremental Strategies for Achieving Suburban Densification

<p>Background: Sprawling, car related development dominates and destroys natural landscapes and productive farm land at the edges of urban centres. Yet, suburbs continue to grow outwards to meet New Zealanders’ preferences for stand-alone housing and keep up with increasing housing demand, while existing dwellings are demolished to make way for new developments. Research objectives: This research aims to investigate the implications of building dwellings incrementally to achieve gradual densification within New Zealand suburbs, reducing the need for green field development, and slowing urban sprawl. The objective of this research is to determine how incremental housing strategies could enable suburbs to continue to grow, however in density rather than sprawl, through the design of accessory dwelling units that can be added to existing sites and developed over time. Research method: Built and proposed incremental housing projects are reviewed to determine existing strategies and their suitability for creating buildings that are able to grow over time. Literature is reviewed to identify current preferences and priorities for suburban living, strategies for sustainable suburban development and current provisions within district plans for achieving denser suburbs. Siteless and site responsive architectural strategies for incremental accessory dwelling units are developed through iterative massing and plan studies to generate a wide range of potential solutions at each stage of development, continually reflecting on and progressing with the most successful options. Potential Implications: The development of spatial strategies for incrementally built accessory dwelling units that could facilitate long term densification in the New Zealand suburban context while reducing the need for the demolition and redevelopment of existing residential sites.</p>

Urban Compression: Incremental Strategies for Achieving Suburban Densification

<p>Background: Sprawling, car related development dominates and destroys natural landscapes and productive farm land at the edges of urban centres. Yet, suburbs continue to grow outwards to meet New Zealanders’ preferences for stand-alone housing and keep up with increasing housing demand, while existing dwellings are demolished to make way for new developments. Research objectives: This research aims to investigate the implications of building dwellings incrementally to achieve gradual densification within New Zealand suburbs, reducing the need for green field development, and slowing urban sprawl. The objective of this research is to determine how incremental housing strategies could enable suburbs to continue to grow, however in density rather than sprawl, through the design of accessory dwelling units that can be added to existing sites and developed over time. Research method: Built and proposed incremental housing projects are reviewed to determine existing strategies and their suitability for creating buildings that are able to grow over time. Literature is reviewed to identify current preferences and priorities for suburban living, strategies for sustainable suburban development and current provisions within district plans for achieving denser suburbs. Siteless and site responsive architectural strategies for incremental accessory dwelling units are developed through iterative massing and plan studies to generate a wide range of potential solutions at each stage of development, continually reflecting on and progressing with the most successful options. Potential Implications: The development of spatial strategies for incrementally built accessory dwelling units that could facilitate long term densification in the New Zealand suburban context while reducing the need for the demolition and redevelopment of existing residential sites.</p>

Mechanisms for Financing Incremental Housing in Nigeria: Case study of Ibadan, Nigeria

Access to housing finance by all income groups is essential for the provision of adequate shelter for all. The study examined the mechanisms for financing incremental housing for the low and moderate income households in Ibadan, Nigeria and their effectiveness with a view to providing information that could inform policy towards effective incremental housing delivery in the study area. Primary data was collected with the use of questionnaire from 742 respondents from 4 randomly selected suburban local government areas of Ibadan, Nigeria. Two sets of questionnaires were used to obtain the data needed for the study. The results of the quantitative data were presented in both descriptive and inferential statistics while qualitative data were contextually reported. The results for housing development of the low and moderate income groups occurred in phases with the incremental process taking as much as 8-12 years for construction while improvement of the existing structure took about five and a half years. Chi-square analysis with values being significant at p<0.05indicated the financing mechanisms for incremental housing construction at the level of foundation (0.007), main structure (0.0005), roofing (0.002) and internal fixtures (0.000) vary significantly with the exception of land purchase and drainage cum sewage stages. Funding for the incremental housing process can be improved if the socio-economic and traditional attributes of the people in the area are promoted. This needs to be encouraged as a way of directing the financing mechanisms devoid of interest rate and default risks to incremental housing.

Limits of the current implementation of incremental housing

In the case of conventional public housing, urban planners and policymakers design the layout of a housing project in a specific location and then estimate how many households can afford a home. This housing policy has been pursued as a legitimate solution for housing low- and middle-income households where the houses are individually financed by bank loans or mortgages raised by the occupants. John Turner criticised conventional housing solutions by affirming that ‘developing governments take the perspective of the elite and act as if the process of low-income houses were the same as in high-income countries and the same as for the small upper-middle class of their own countries’. Bruce Ferguson and Jesus Navarrete extend this argument with their critique of distributing finished houses to low-income populations and then requiring long-term payments, which are harmful to the beneficiaries. They note that ‘governments think of housing as complete units built by developers that households must purchase with a long-term loan rather than as a progressive process’.

Beyond the freedom to build: Long-term outcomes of Elemental’s incremental housing in Quinta Monroy

In 2003, the Chilean architecture firm Elemental began to revisit the idea of partially completed housing harnessing the productive capacities of the informal process within a more formal framework. The Quinta Monroy project in the northern Chilean city of Iquique was the first such project and involved the in-situ replacement of an informal settlement. The desire of residents was for a middle-class house that was beyond the scope of their budget or the subsidy. The Elemental project at Quinta Monroy comprised 93 expandable houses designed in parallel buildings and organized in four courtyards aiming to promote community interaction and maintain neighbors’ affinities. This paper investigates the process of housing adaptation through self-construction twelve years after the residents received their homes in 2005. The strategy to promote resident-driven expansions has been successful as 92 out of 93 households expanded their homes. The most significant concerns focused on the deterioration of living standards due to progressive and uncontrollable extensions which might have significant impacts on the settlement development. The findings from this paper focus on the neighbors’ negotiations for housing extensions and the risk of the re-creation of precarious living environments evidencing limitations for unassisted or spontaneous incremental schemes of housing development.