How Govt. Can Make Housing Affordable

• Real Estate Expert, Arch. EMMANUEL FALUDE

Arc. Emmanuel Falude is a leading authority in the real estate sector. He is the Director at the Green Building Council of Nigeria (GBCN), a non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting green, safe, and sustainable human settlements and industrial installations across Nigeria. Known for his strong advocacy for affordable and sustainable housing, Arc. Falude was a prominent panelist at the recently concluded Lagos Real Estate Marketplace Conference and Exhibition, held at Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.

During the panel discussion titled “Affordable Housing and Sustainable Designs: Balancing Cost and Environmental Goals,” Arc. Falude delivered a thought-provoking perspective on the need for environmentally friendly housing solutions that are also economically accessible. In a post-panel interview with City People Reporter JAMIU ABUBAKAR, Arc. Falude elaborated on practical steps the government must take to make housing more affordable for Nigerians.

Below are excerpts from the insightful conversation.

You just did a wonderful presentation regarding real estate and how to build an affordable and sustainable house.

Can you explain your points in detail?

So I want you to quickly dwell on them

So again, just to merge the conversation, we are in a very sensitive days. Climate change is before us. Earning power of people are shrinking.

Per capita earning of households is also shrinking across developing economies, even like Nigeria. Now we are saying we want to build houses that are affordable and also environmentally friendly. Because, I mean, that’s the context of sustainability.

Being able to be environmentally friendly, both in design and operation. So now within these two contexts, there are certain things to highlight. Firstly, the budget.

Then secondly, the quality of life. Then thirdly, the environment itself. Now within this context, there are tangibles and intangibles.

Environment is intangible. It’s nobody’s responsibility as it were. But when it comes, it impacts everyone.

So at that level, we take care of that environment as to driving the conversation. Maybe government, maybe policies, maybe some private vested investors. And for private vested investors, your goal is not environment.

Your goal is return on investment. Your goal is a good ROI, good profits. Now government has been the one that has driven this case the most.

In countries where we have had active footprints on this context of environmental or sustainable construction. So let’s start picking the battles. Number one, I would say government should take a lead.

And should also give a policy or a blueprint as to how to define the future or the present of the built environment. How are new towns meant to be defined? How are standard of constructions meant to be to make it environmentally friendly? And to also reduce possible climate impact and possible environmental disaster. That’s number one.

Then again, now looking at the costs in terms of budgeting. Maybe one of the things to do is also to look at the cost of construction. This may also be reduced if local manufacturing is empowered and local product is being used often.

Because with the use of local products and local manufacturing, we’re able to reduce cost of construction. We’re also able to reduce cost of transportation. So ultimately, this also comes back to the cost of delivering the household itself.

Of course, now looking at household earning. Of course, reasonably, for any house to be affordable, it will be said that you should not spend more than 30 or 40% of your monthly earning on your housing provision. So how do you then ascertain this benchmark, knowing fully well that some cities are struggling to pay 70,000 naira per month as minimum wage? So within this context, how do we then define it? So maybe at that level, again, government now needs to define their priority.

Do they really care about quality of life? Do they really care about people? Do they really care about these housing conversation? So maybe in that context, if it is government is serious, maybe to also give some affordable context. We still need policy to drive some direction. Policy as to new towns, infrastructure support.

Because again, one thing that drives construction cost up is support of infrastructure and trying to secure the building. And also trying to bring in materials to give a lifestyle. So maybe government is also able to come up with policies that give us support, infrastructure support that gives some sort of leeway to developers.

Of course, anywhere in the world, developers and private equity drive the housing provision the most. Government only drive infrastructure and policy. So maybe we also need to look at this context and discuss more detail to see what can government do again.

Of course, we have had this conversation long and it’s always been interplay between government, developers and people’s pocket. But the team lead or the leader in this conversation is always government and the group is always the people. So let’s say government drive the policy, drive the conversation, give some source.

Because again, in countries where we have had mortgage plan work, it’s government that governs, that discusses this government. So maybe again, we need to look at a very vibrant mortgage system that give a considerable percentage of increase. And also give some low barrier entry for that.

The barrier entry is based on the earning of people. So when you have a low barrier entry mortgage system that take a clue from how much people earn and also give an upfront support to developers. And also kind of look at some environmental indicators in the old scheme.

I believe we should have affordable and also sustainable housing schemes. Thank you very much. That is fantastic, I must say.

During the course of discussion, you made mention of what your organization is doing as regards making sure that houses are affordable and at the same time, what can be sustained. I want you to share a little bit on this. Okay, so again, the organization I represent is Green Building Council Nigeria.

I’m Director of Training and Certification. So what we do basically is to come up with more of knowledge repository and knowledge impartation system where people get to know what is possible and what is obtainable. And what can be the whole spectrum of affordability and sustainability.

So within that space, we also offer some sort of, I say sort of because we are an NGO, but we also offer like an economically viable consulting support. All right, let’s proceed. Okay, you’re trying to describe what your organization is doing to contribute to affording the goal of today’s discussion.

Okay, so basically we just offer that knowledge repository. We also offer consulting support. We also offer quarterly empowerment team.

And we also kind of connect resources. Sometimes people approach us, they need certain things, we connect them with who can provide for them. So basically, we’re into knowledge, advocacy, and connection of resources.

I’m much more interested in the part you play as the director. Okay, so I’m Director of Training. So as I said, that means I’m kind of the head of the knowledge sharing part.

And so what we do in my space is that we have like two or three arms where we offer that knowledge or where we educate people. We have quarterly training. We also have a cadet team where we call our youth cadets, where we have younger people, younger advocators, and younger space and people that just come into the space.

So we also have that platform. It’s also part of the training directorate. Then we also have certification under my directorate.

So what we do at that level is to advise on what possible certification a project can connect with based on the project scale, budget, and location. So all of these are within my directorate. Okay, so who and who are fit enough to come on that? Anyone that has interest in the built environment.

Anyone that has resources or that is resourceful enough to be part of the built environment. It doesn’t matter if you are initially trained as an architect or a built environment expert. It doesn’t matter.

Anyone with interest, competence, and investment in the built environment space are fit to be members of Green Building Council Nigeria. Most of our training are free of charge.