AN ASSESSMENT OF FACTORS AFFECTING LAND DEVELOPMENT AND HOUSING DELIVERY IN ABUJA MUNICIPAL AREA COUNCIL, ABUJA, NIGERIA

Urbanization is among the factors that affect land development and housing delivery. The massive influx of people into Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) brings about many problems, among which is housing problems, orchestrated by lack of provision by the government to enable the people expand the city plan. In Abuja and other cities, there are many approaches that are taken to address the problems of land and housing delivery, however, in spite of the application of such approaches to the housing situation in AMAC, housing delivery remains a huge problem, which informs the basis of this work, an assessment of the factors affecting land development and housing delivery in AMAC, Abuja, Nigeria. Views of estate surveyors and valuers, engineers, tenants, landlords, and others such as visitors and people that are found in the study area were sampled with questionnaires and interviews. Personal observation is used in recording vital findings not captured by questionnaire and interview methods. Related data are also generated from textbooks, journals, and internet materials. Using the foregoing, data were collected and analyzed and the outcomes suggest that lack of price control by the government, corruption amongst politicians and to civil servants, inadequate finance, high cost of building materials and inflation are among the factors that affect land development and housing delivery in AMAC. The government policy that Abuja is meant only for the elites leaves the jobless, petit entrepreneurs, carpenters, mechanics, amongst others, to move to slum settlements, where they can afford house rent. In this view, the work contends that lack of proper urban planning in AMAC is responsible for harmful effects of urbanization in the study area. Among other things, the work recommends that AMAC should be re-planned to cater for rapid population growth in the area.