Tuesday, June 24, 2014

RAPID DEVELOPMENT AND CONSTRUCTION ISSUES

I want to share a bit of history with you, seeing as the 70% of population of Lagos is under 35 years old. In 1914, Lagos was chosen as the capital of Nigeria by the British colonial masters and from then onward, the demographic and physical expansion of the city has been so dramatic that by 1960, it had grown into a metropolis with well over 1 million inhabitants, by 1990 it had 7 million inhabitants and the estimate today is between 15-20 million inhabitants. The inhospitable physical environment and the choice of location by the British colonial authorities to develop Lagos as Nigeria's capital are largely accountable for the rapid rate and nature of its land use development. The predominance of swamps and lagoons makes it necessary for large scale land reclamations as a precondition for land use development, while the administrative, industrial, commercial and transport functions in Lagos still make it function as the capital. The past Lagos Executive Development Board (LEDB) dominated land use development for many years and in spite of numerous constraints, the Board succeeded in carrying out extensive swamp reclamations providing residential and industrial estate development. The decision to transfer the capital to Abuja was expected to mitigate the rapid land use development in Lagos, but this has not proved to be the case at all. Above all this is clear evidence that urban planning alone has failed to tackle the growing population and housing needs in Lagos. The geometry of land use in Metropolitan Lagos is gradually changing under the influence of urban renewal and highway development radiating from the inner-city to the neighbouring towns and cities which have attracted new industrial and residential estates are springing up in border areas.

The Lekki Expressway corridor is home to the fastest growing number of construction sites in the whole of Africa and one of the fastest in the world? The rate of construction in this area has been so rapid between 1999 to present, that the whole landscape between Victoria Island and The Lekki Free Trade Zone has been transformed beyond recognition. A lot of reclaimed land has added to the land mass and size. Unfortunately much of this development has been unregulated, giving rise to buildings that have many design faults and will need to be demolished in the near future for safety purposes. The rainy season is here again which exposes a lot of problems with construction development and every year without fail this causes a lot of setbacks to construction works. As I have mentioned repeatedly, this is a good time to rent and buy as it exposes a lot of problems with the property and the surrounding areas. Property and road construction works are usually delayed during the rainy season as sites and access roads get flooded and always need trailer loads of sand and rubble for filling again after the rains have subsided. In many areas gutters overflow into roads, and drains and plumbing in homes get blocked. It must seem like a lost cause to developers who find that their workers also seem to spend more time in the rainy season sleeping and taking time off with illnesses, thereby delaying even further the project completion dates.

Visiting building sites during construction is quite interesting, as you find works are being undertaken at varying speeds depending on the flow of funds available for that project. For some, works have either halted or slowed down considerably. The ones that are continuing are often reviewing their spending on materials and fittings, which in many cases may mean compromising the quality of the finished property. At the best of times it is rare to find a really good finished property, but with frequent cut backs and compromise on materials it is even rarer to find a fairly well finished property. Developers are desperate to complete their projects on time and will often take on artisans through recommendation from a friend, brother or church member without proper checks, resulting in the finishing in a lot of properties being of poor quality; something as simple as fitting light switches is a challenge for some of these artisans they don’t have the right training or tools. Plumbing works is a major concern if done badly, of which I have had terrible personal experience. Shoddy and badly finished works can cause damage the property and cause a life of misery to the inhabitants for many years and possibly forever, so with the proliferation of building construction going on, it is important to ensure building works starts and finishes correctly

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