MAKING THE INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS SUSTAINABLE

Ola Damilola Dominic

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Formality as a technical term has an end and a function which is a problem in itself and definitely leaves gaps open which is left to be filled in by the natural consequence which is Informality. The question for long has been on how to formalize the informal settlements but it has never yielded any long term positive result. This could be as a result of the general populace considering Informality as a problem and not as a viable solution that needs to be improved upon. Only of recent has focus been shifted towards what can be learned from the informal settlements resilience and growth and applying this knowledge gained from the years of formal developments in making the Informal sustainable.

Severe difficulties exist in defining the term “Informal Settlements”. According to Srinivas, 2003 informal settlements are characterized by unauthorized use of vacant public or private land, illegal subdivision and/or rental of land, unauthorized construction of structures and buildings, reliance on low cost and locally available scrap construction materials, absence of restrictive standards and regulations, reliance on family labour and artisanal techniques for construction, non-availability of mortgage or any other subsidized finance. Various definitions have thus been proposed, but that suggested by the UN Habitat Programme is probably the most widely applicable. Informal settlements, can be defined as residential areas where a group of housing units has been constructed on land to which the occupants have no legal claim, or which they occupy illegally; unplanned settlements and areas where housing is not in compliance with current planning and building regulations. The informal settlements range from sub-standard slums to housing that does not have the proper development permit. Informal housing can be described as housing that does not conform to the laws and regulatory frameworks set up in a particular city (UN-HABITAT, 2003).

In several countries with free–market economies, the informal housing sector has become practically a part of the housing sector – or an alternative, within a free market economy, to the lack of affordable State-owned housing (Potsiou 2007). Given that the majority of existing informal construction is of relatively good quality and cannot be characterized as slums, the informal housing sector has been “quietly” supported by certain Governments, and is now acquiring growing recognition. The old theory, which viewed informal settlements as “threats to public safety and health requiring demolition”, seems to have been gradually replaced by a common recognition that informal housing is a valuable capital asset that should find its way to the real property market (De Soto 2000).

From the above excerpts, it can be seen that Informality is slowly but steadily expanding from the common ideologies of slums to residential areas in urban areas in form of apartments which fall short of regulatory frameworks. Informal Settlements are often the result of several overlapping forces. They are the manifestation of unrealistic regulatory framework, ill-conceived policies, inadequate urban planning, strict financial access, and in some cases simply bad architecture; but on the other hand they are a manifestation of the resilience and ingenuity of disadvantaged people.

Some of the underlying factors which give rise to and aid the wide spread of Informal Settlements in modern times are expatiated on below.

A.   Rapid Urbanization: Rapid urbanization and inadequate capacity to cope with the housing needs of people in urban areas have contributed to the development of Informal Settlements. This pace is taking a toll on the cities and urban population. The task of ensuring a healthy urban environment appears to have grown beyond the capacity and resources of municipal authorities. With this rate of urbanization, settlements are in constant demand and already every major city has a deficit of houses for its population. Some of the financially capable individuals and developers in line with this form of new normal, create an alternative source of income for themselves by going into real estate development; building houses that are below standards and not governed by building regulations or by-laws just to accommodate the ever growing populace who have no other form of accommodation after relocation. They prefer to rent these houses as they are seen as an alternative to waiting on the governments list for housing provision.

Also with the increase in urbanization, existing settlements and dwellers located around major urban centres give in to the demand of the working class who need a settlement close by to cut down on their cost of transportation and the stress of traffic gridlocks. The original settlers end up selling their land to cash in on the gains and relocate to the outer skirts of the city. The new inhabitants of this settlements in their rush to renovate this old homes and residences end up building without respect to building codes and regulations whereas the relocated settlers also start a new development on the outer skirts without any planning regulation or building code taking advantage of the remoteness of the new location.

According to UN-HABITAT, 2008, 2009a in 2008 over half of the world population lived in urban areas and it is expected to rise to 70% by 2050. In recent years, it has become obvious that informal housing is not just the domain of the poor, but also important for the middle class and even the elite of the second and third world cities. Such trends point to a complex continuum of legality and illegality where self-help housing exists alongside upscale informal subdivisions formed through legal ownership but in violation of land use regulations. The divide here is not between formality and informality but rather between informality.

B.    Unrealistic or Insufficient Planning Regulations and Policies: The urban poor are trapped in an informal and ‘illegal’ world. Officially, they do not exist. Although they may reside within the administrative boundary of a town or city, city council staff often no longer attempt to assert their jurisdiction or even enter the slums. (The Challenge of Slums - Global Report on Human Settlements 2003)

In some cases, unrealistic regulations rather than poverty are the causes of Informal Settlements. They are developed as a result of finding ways to overcome complex and time consuming planning and long delays in obtaining a development permit. It is important to note that in some cases, residents of some informal settlements are not necessarily poor; rather, the informality of the development is used as the only way to overcome existing complex and time consuming planning and long delays in expanding of city plans and development permitting procedures as well as unrealistic land management constraints. Of course, there are cases where both individuals and developers have built housing with speculative purposes, without any planning or building permit but on privately owned land acquired through legal means. In other words, many manifestations of informal settlements across the region invoke images of poverty, exclusion and despair, but there are certainly examples where this is not the case. In some cases existing or previous legal tussles and claim of ownership on a particular piece of land(s) puts on hold construction permits which tends to linger on for years. Such instances tends to deter people from seeking permit from appropriate authorities knowing it might take ages before it could be ever approved.

C.   Poverty and Lack of Low Income Housing: Major cities in developing countries have a deficit of low income housing provision which keeps accumulating year after year. Housing market dysfunction is exacerbated by the fact that private developers are uninterested in creating more low income housing even though that’s exactly what the city needs. Where a rental systems allow landlords to gouge desperate tenants, more and more people are turning to the low cost housing scheme as a final resort. In some cases, as much as three families could put up in an accommodation originally meant for just a family in a low cost housing scheme and this no doubt places more stress on the services and facilities provided. When this services or facilities tend to break down or develop faults, the developers or government are almost not willing to rectify such due to the fact that the project isn’t profit oriented. Over time when a complete breakdown of services and facilities occur needing a total overhaul, the cost of maintenance then becomes expensive for both parties. The settlement gradually becomes a rundown block and gradually develops back into an informal settlement.

On one hand, if low income houses are built in prime locations they are bought up at once by the middle class and some high class who can afford to and then a lucky few from the low class are able to get some allocations. Due to the fact that high or middle-class individuals are living in these settlements they are able to maintain the services over time. On the other hand when low income houses are provided on the fringes of town as an example of social exclusion which is away from their jobs and other necessary basic infrastructures. They either sell their rights to profit on the transaction and due to the fact that they are so removed from their source of livelihoods; failure to make regular payments would result in eviction. This causes another problem.

According to The Challenge of Slums - Global Report on Human Settlements 2003, the most important factor that limits progress in providing housing and improving living conditions of low-income groups in informal settlements is the lack of genuine political will to address the issue in a fundamentally structured, sustainable and large-scale manner. There is no doubt that the political will to achieve long lasting and structured interventions constitutes the key to success, particularly when accompanied by local ownership and leadership, and the mobilization of the potential and capacity

D.   Lack of Access to Financial Aid: According to Global Report on Human Settlements 2005 - Financing Urban Shelter. Recent estimates indicate that more than 2 billion people will be added to the number of urban dwellers in the developing countries over the next 25 years. If adequate financial resources are not invested in the development of urban shelter and requisite services, this additional population will also be trapped in urban poverty, deplorable housing conditions, poor health and low productivity, thus further compounding the enormous informal challenge that exists today. Shelter has become a commodity for increasing numbers of low-income households, especially those living in urban areas of developing countries. Those who build incrementally (or progressively) are a very significant group in many countries. However, loan finance for shelter-related investments in incremental dwellings made by low-income households whose income comes from the informal economy is rarely available through the formal commercial financial sector. In the vast majority of cases, these households are ineligible for commercial mortgage finance. Households seeking to invest in their shelter (land, infrastructure and housing) have been forced to use their own limited income, seek additional resources from family and friends, and borrow on informal credit markets or, in some cases, from groups such as credit unions. Sources of longer-term finance are extremely limited and interest rates may be high.

Where major cities financial model is geared towards the wealthy it makes it all but impossible for middle class residents to buy a house. Cities in developing worlds are becoming more expensive to live in with the trend of globalisation which gives rise to a higher cost of living. Nowadays the cost of living in developing countries is far more expensive compared to living in the developed countries. This means it’s not just the poor who are being squeezed out of formal Housing but the growing population as well. Furthermore, the private sector targets its land and housing development activities at high-income and middle-income groups with regular employment and access to formal credit. As a result, the urban poor and large segments of low- and moderate-income groups have no choice but to rely on informal land and housing markets for access to land and shelter, thus fostering the expansion of irregular settlements in cities.  Informal land and housing delivery systems remain the only realistic affordable alternative for meeting the needs of low-income households. They achieve this by pulling their resources together as friends or neighbours, social groups, or religious groups to name a few, in order to provide loans for each other’s housing projects.

E.    Lack of Serviced Lands: As a result of the congestion in major urban centres, some countries make accessible parcels of land on the outskirt available to private developers, NGO’s for resale to individuals. More often than not, provision of services to this settlements remains tied up in paper works for years. While the bureaucratic work is being finalized the process goes beyond the administrative boundaries of the local municipality set up, which gives rise to many management problems. Such settlements over time lose their attractiveness and have become home to low-income residents and illegal migrants living in overcrowded and substandard conditions. The systematic lack of investment to maintain the buildings and increase in the population only makes visible the lack of services and has gradually eroded their quality over time. In the long run they become another form of informality in their own sense.

The search for solutions to address informal settlements and make them sustainable is clearly multifaceted and multidimensional just as their originating factors are. The adverse effects of the Informal Settlements if left uncontrolled and reintegrated back with the whole city are far reaching and encompass the social, physical and economic scale. Informal practices remain the only affordable option for the urban poor and low income groups to access housing and land. If informal settlement interventions are to be efficient and sustainable, the “achievements” and capacity of the informal sector to deliver assets to the poor must be appreciated.

Recognizing that the types and processes of formation of Informal Settlements are multidimensional and multifaceted in nature requires that appropriate solutions are used in different situations and not the basic one size fits all approach. The resiliency of Informal Settlements against all odds to reach a level of self-sufficiency is something note-worthy which can be improve to make a better urban living standard for all. The different processes which produce different types of informal settlements should be well analysed, as different, corresponding policy approaches might be necessary as a one size fit all approach would not be ideal in making them sustainable. A few of the ways by which our Informal Settlements can be made sustainable requires the effort of both the individuals, government and private developers as well.

1.    Formalization and Legalization: Durand-Lasserve (2006) identifies recent trends in understanding security of tenure issues by international organizations. “Urban actors are changing their strategy regarding secure tenure, with impact on cities’ administration, urban governance and sustainable urban development.” Tenure regularization policies are being shaped within a new conceptual framework: moving away from security of tenure based on landownership and titling programmes towards a more comprehensive approach focusing on informal settlements’ social and economic integration of. This new approach recognizes security of tenure based on legal pluralism and a mixed land market. In an instance in one of the states in Nigeria (Ogun), the state government did an exercise to provide land title documents as a means of ensuring tenure security for all settlements without a legal rights or which have encroached on the state’s planning and building code. All they had to do was provide plans and an evidence of purchase of the land. Further down the line, government tends to use the plans acquired to re-plan the whole state and reintegrate all informal settlements with infrastructures and services. Though the programme had land charges attached to it to make up for the land use charges it was a good avenue for government to generate revenue.

2.    Regularization and Upgrading: Regularization and upgrading of informal settlements imply a more comprehensive intervention. For upgrading programmes to be effective, they must be integrated in the wider socio-economic context (e.g. a national strategy for poverty reduction). UN-Habitat highlights that “[The] problem of urban informality should be viewed within the broader context of the general failure of both welfare-oriented and market-based low income housing policies and strategies in many (though not all) countries”. Informal settlements should also be complemented by “clear and consistent policies for urban planning and management, as well as for low-income housing development” (UN-Habitat 2003).

In practice, not all dwellings in informal settlements are owner-occupied; they tend to be part of a vibrant rental housing market, controlled by individual homeowners and by speculative developers. Private-sector (developers’) involvement must be formalized and strictly monitored. Most informal settlements only need to be upgraded by simply connecting them to infrastructure and services as they are developed while taking into account the provision of right of way, road access and provision of public space.

Urban planners often use a four-step process for informal settlements regularization and upgrading (Bolay 2006, World Bank 2001).

Step 1: Goal-setting. All stakeholders create realistic goals for the future, which include a vision of the informal settlement as a whole.

Step 2: Action. The action plan includes: (a) provision of communal and social infrastructure; and (b) provisions for interdepartmental coordination and management. It is important that progress is noticeable. If informal residents see action, they will realize that their opinions are valuable and that positive and sustainable change is possible. Residents need to feel that improving their community is an investment in their future and the future of their children. 

Step 3:  Community participation and capacity-building. It is extremely important to have a forum where all stakeholders can come together to express concerns and optimism about the future of informal housing settlements. Community-based actions (as in the cases of the Russian Federation and Gorica, Bosnia and Herzegovina; see boxes 18 and 19) and consensus on the most important measures to be implemented makes residents involved and responsible for change. At the settlement level, residents need to take initiative, ownership and responsibility as well as contribute financially.

Step 4: Accountability processes. These are necessary to report results and make residents and local government accountable for change. Part of the accountability process is to ensure that information is shared with all stakeholders and that no one hoards information; this can be mitigated through active support from major stakeholders. Accountability also involves continuing policy revision to adapt to the changing needs of communities, from response and feedback, integrated into urban planning strategies for informal housing settlements. Building and maintaining infrastructure and public amenities are major steps in formalizing and upgrading informal settlements.

3.    Alternative Housing Systems for Informal Settlements: A greater focus has been placed on the creation of an enabling environment, greater involvement of communities in decision-making processes and mobilizing their resources for low-cost, self-help housing construction. Governments have promoted alternative housing finance systems that allow access to credit for the urban poor. These small credits, often micro-loans, encourage the improvement of informal housing and assist with legalization costs. If an informal settlement is deemed fit for occupancy, local governments should work with national bodies and civil society to promote affordable finance tools that can be accessed by residents. This will encourage the development of “suitable” settlements and make funds available for housing improvements. It would be a mutually beneficial situation for residents and local governments. Lending providers and local governments can justify the expense as an initial investment having the impact of long-term investment. Upgrading in this way seems to be the least expensive approach for government to deal with urban informal settlements.

4.    Decentralized Planning and Land Management: The absence of a recent regulatory plan and approved local regulations for land use has to be worked on. For any kind of construction to take place in most states, development permits must be obtained from the Central authority which still uses the outdated or rather incomplete urban plan which was developed with the city. This outdated plan doesn’t take into account the countless transformations the city has gone through. In many countries the costs – in time, money and number of offices to be visited to formally construct and register a building are quite substantial. This lengthy and confusing processes encourages the informal sector coupled with a lack of strong enforcement by the responsible agencies. (World Bank, 2001:3).

If every local authority has an updated urban plan and also is responsible for its planning permits, lengthy delays and opportunities for corruption is reduced drastically. So specifications like setbacks, floor area ratio, and width of roads could be negotiated project by project reducing the spread of Informality.

5.    Access to Financial Credits: In an economy where financial systems are geared towards the wealthy and people with a source of steady income, it’s almost impossible for the urban poor to secure loans to develop their settlements.

For now, however, the most effective solutions that citizens have at their disposal is each other. The strength of their exceptionally robust informal networks keeps the crisis from morphing into chaos. Through a system of social ties forged through family and friends, the people themselves are managing to mitigate the housing shortage. Governments, banks and private lending firms should be obligated by policies to support by providing soft loans to the urban poor to develop their settlements.

In conclusion, this paper does not intend to grant the Architect the right to plausible deniability of the existence of Informal Settlements. The role of the Architect as a mediator is pivotal in transforming what was for decades a conflicting relationship between the communities and the states into a partnership and cooperative relationship, which can lead to avenues for genuine participation in Housing Policies.

Architects have to begin to learn to become aware of the problems existing in our built environment just next to the super-structures we are very much interested and immersed in. We need to accept and realise not every architect will get to earn a commission or be responsible for the next building which will become an icon for the city. The earlier we begin to start preparing ourselves for this role, the better it will be for humanity as it encourages the development of new methods and ideas which will transcend both the informal and formal settlements.

As it can be seen, the very few Architects who made themselves aware to this problem have already been proffering innovative solutions which are noteworthy. The recent examples of Incremental Housing: one by Alejandro Aravena’s Chilean firm- Elemental and the other by an international team of architects led by Stockholm based Filipe Balestra and Sara Goransson have helped in improving the living standards of certain Informal Settlements or Dwellers as well as raise more awareness for the subject of Informality.

Also, students must begin to be taught about the existence of this parallel city which exists right within the formal ones. Informality has to be brought inside the formal walls of the university. We need to broaden the roles of our future architects, expanding the field of users whom they will design for and the environments that they must take responsibility for.

Excerpts from the book “Learning from Cairo: Global Perspectives and Future Visions,” by Beth Stryker, Omar Nagati and Magda Mostafa, goes as follows:

How can architectural academia respond to this shifting climate? A climate where the majority of the built environment is conceived and implemented outside of the construct of conventional practice? Where the majority of the architectural product in our city exists without architects? How can we further propagate a singular top-down mode of practice in our teaching when it’s malfunctioning at best and corrupt or absent at its worst? When this conventional mode is only viable in neatly packaged projects with clear financing, educated clients and formal frameworks? How can we continue to teach our students, the architects of the future generation, to only be equipped to operate within a small portion of the built environment- ignoring the massive built environment and user groups often represented on maps as solid black “informal settlement” How much more than the majority of our urban areas does the informal have to become before we train our students to understand, address, and ultimately work with it- rather than ignoring or eradicating it.

Professor Ivan Kucina

Architecture of Informality

Dessau Institute of Architecture