Stakeholders have stressed the significance of urban planning in achieving affordable housing and maintaining the functionality of a city.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of Fame Oyster and Co., Olufemi Oyedele, urban planning is the only tool to achieve affordable housing and functional cities.
He said, “In well-planned cities, where Concentric Circles Theory of Burgess or Sector Theory of Hoyt or the combination of these two theories applies, low to medium income earners are located close to their places of work. Most of the houses close to industrial areas and CBDs are low to medium-income earners’ houses. High-income earners, who can afford luxuries and luxuriant communities, can go to the suburbs of the cities.
“Urban planning is a factor of sustainable development because it has a great role to play in abject poverty eradication. Since housing is a container, we must solve one problem before another. For example, we must provide the housing function of shield provision against inclement weather “before services provision” for people.”
According to him, if poor people and the homeless are protected from inclement weather devoid of en suite toilets and bathrooms, the country would have made significant achievements.
“They will improvise and cook and bath and dig a pit to defecate outside the shed. Later we can provide better toilets and bathrooms and a kitchen for them. We must meet quantity request of people in housing before quality request,” he noted.
The General Manager of Shelter Initiatives Ltd, Morenike Babalola, asserted it was time to look at urban planning as a tool for achieving affordable housing and functional cities.
She said, “Each time videos of houses in other countries are posted we should note that their successes are as a result of urban planning, zoning and design. We may like what others do and wish it for our cities. We need to encourage and embrace urban planning at all levels, obtain necessary permits and adhere to the standards of the building code before, during and after construction. Land is not elastic and infrastructure does not come cheap.”
