Low Income Housing in Dhaka City- Vasantek Rehabilitation Project as a Case

Transcription

1 World Review of Business Research Vol. 2. No. 3. May Pp Low Income Housing in Dhaka City- Vasantek Rehabilitation Project as a Case Jasmin Ara Begum 1 and Imran Ebne Amin 2 The mega-city Dhaka, the seventh largest populous city in the world, with a population of 12.8 million (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics) in 2008 and projected population of 25 million in 2025 is growing at a faster rate (4.2% per year). According to an estimate around 35% of the Dhaka city population live in slums and squatters due to low-income migrant people from rural areas in search of job and urban amenities. Along with the population growth, the demand on housing and related facilities of these migrant and city population is growing at an alarming rate. The worsening urban housing situation, especially for low income group, is caused by rapid population growth, shortage of urban land, poor economy, poverty level of low income group, housing policy and climatic factors. To meet the demand the Bangladesh government already took decision to build a large number of housing projects for low-income and lower-middle income group people in Purbachal, Mirpur, and Jilimili including a number of slum rehabilitation projects.the paper examines the housing situation for low income group in Dhaka from desk top research and actual field survey. A studio project was designed and conducted by the authors for the 4 th year 2 nd semester students to develop housing options for low income people in a real life situation, the Vasantek punarbason prokalpo (rehabilitation project) in Mirpur-13. The Vasantek housing is a government project for low income people, partly built by a private developer which is currently declared as a failed project. The aim of the paper is to find out the problems from real life situation, appraise options taking care of the prevailing problems and propose guidelines for future development so that the future investment in this sector become more sustainable and users would get better living environment. Keywords: Housing, Low income group, Dhaka, option appraisal, sustainable design guidelines. Field of Research: Low Income Housing 1. Introduction Mega-city Dhaka, the seventh largest populous city in the world, with a population of 12.8 million (BBS 2008) in 2008 and projected population of 25 million in 2025 is growing at a faster rate (4.2% per year). Dhaka has grown from a town of just 0.5 million people in 1957 into a metropolis of more than 7.0 million in 1991 over an area of 1528 sq.km (Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan-DMDP). According to Nabeel Hamde the problem regarding housing for the poor and low cost housing is the shortfall in supply to demand and the conventional approaches to housing solution largely irrelevant given the magnitude of demand (Hamdi, N 1994). 1. Jasmin Ara Begum, Ph D, Department of Architecture, Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST), Dhaka, Bangladesh, jasmin.arch@aust.edu 2. Imran Ebne Amin, Department of Architecture, Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST), Dhaka, Bangladesh, bdimran21@yahoo.com

2 Dhaka city have around 40% of the national urban population and due to lack of housing caused 35% of the city people live in slums and squatters (Islam, N 2009). The paper examines the housing situation for low income group in Dhaka from desk top research and actual field survey. A studio project was designed and conducted by the authors for the 4th year 2nd semester students to develop housing options for low income people in a real life situation, the Vasantek punarbason prokalpo (rehabilitation project) in Mirpur-14. The Vasantek housing is a government project for low income people, partly built by a private developer which is currently declared as a failed project. The paper is organized in five sections. Section one describes the existing housing situation for low income group in Dhaka. The section two and three gives the background of the Vasantek Rehabilitation Project and Methodology used for the research paper. The problem identification and design options for the Vasantek project are dealt in the section four. The final section outlines the recommendation and concluding remarks. The aim of the paper is to find out the problems from real life situation, appraise options taking care of the prevailing problems and propose guidelines for future development so that the future investment in this sector become more sustainable and users would get better living environment. 2. Existing Housing Situation for Low Income Group in Dhaka Low income people in Dhaka city mostly live in over-crowded, rudimentary temporary housing with lack of urban amenities and services, often paying high rent in a deteriorating physical environment. Islam et.al found out in a study in 1995 that only 5% of the poor of Dhaka lived in permanent or pucca houses, 22% lived in semi pucca houses, 41% in temporary units and another 32% in rudimentary kutcha units or jhupris (Islam, et.al, 1997). The study also found out that 16% of the poor in Dhaka were owners; 56% were tenants; 8% were rent free dwellers, and nearly 20% were squatters or illegal occupants. The majority of these household lack water supply, sewage system, electricity and gas supply. Only 17.8% have access to municipal waste disposal facilities and the rest of the household dispose their waste in adjacent marshy lands. Despite living in the city for long time they generally do not lose their bond with their villages and even their city born children identify themselves migrant from rural areas. The high land value in Dhaka city as well as construction cost impedes the low income people to get access to own a land or a house. It is estimated that only 3.2% of the urban poor in Dhaka owned land with dwelling unit (Islam, et al 1997-GOB and ADB study). The study also showed that only the top 30% (World Bank Document 1997) of the distribution of income in Dhaka could afford to purchase new housing. Thus it can be concluded that around 70% of the city s population cannot afford to buy from formal sector private developers housing. The poor mainly reside in slums and squatters. The slums are substandard housing built on privately owned land and squatters are substandard housing built illegally on publicly owned land including railway tracks. There are also a large number of homeless 79

3 or pavement dwellers in Dhaka city. Another popular term used for low income housing is Affordable Housing. The common definition is housing that cost less than 30% of gross household income is considered as affordable housing. Urban poor have little access to urban lands and they mostly build their temporary houses on vacant government or private land and thereby become squatters. Their houses are built using low cost housing materials like tin, bamboo, straw and polythene. Land scarcity is mainly due to topographical reason. The real scarcity is also associated with an artificial scarcity due mainly to the lack of utilization of public land within the city. Dhaka is situated in a flood plain and surrounded by rivers which periodically flood the low lands around the city. Most of the evicted settle on the urban fringe that in turn results in land filling and land grabbing causing the city more prone to floods. The basic concept of house in our county is to own a structure in a plot. The notion of housing needs to be modified to take advantage of different form of housing and also to take the advantage of innovative solutions like row housing, multi-storied cluster housing, court-yard type low rise housing and so on. (Rashid, M 2002) The rents of private slums are much higher compared to non-slum houses (Islam, et al 1995). The average area per person is 2 to 3 square meters (World Bank Document 1997) and for budget constraints majority lives in small accommodation, often deprived of adequate support services. Housing for poor is a vital investment in health leading to increasing in productive capacity and overall well being of a person and his/her family. For land shortage it is not feasible to expand the accommodation for people horizontally, but it is possible to expand vertically. The role of real estate companies is very important in this regard. Unfortunately most of the real estate companies are working for upper and middle income group, rarely for low income group for their business return. The private sector developers are only working for upper and middle class population in the city. The main public actors those intervene the housing sector are the planning agency RAJUK, the National Housing Authority (NHA), the Urban Development Directorate, and the Public Works Department of the Ministry of Housing. Housing related issues are managed by the NHA and RAJUK. The National Housing Policy calls for special consideration for improvement of low income settlements and slums and squatters. It has clear recommendations in support of ensuring proper rehabilitation in cases of slum eviction. NHA has tried to help a private company to implement a resettlement project in multi storied buildings in Mirpur, Dhaka. To meet the demand the Bangladesh government already took decision to build a large number of housing projects for lowincome and lower-middle income group people in Purbachal, Mirpur, and Jilimili including a number of slum rehabilitation projects. 3. Vasantek Rehabilitation Project Following the government decision of 17 march 2007 to limit evictions due to advocacy of various organizations (CUP, BLAST, ASK and so on), a rehabilitation committee was formed with Professor Nazrul Islam as chair of the steering committee. A resettlement scheme for victims of eviction was planned, to be implemented from July The Government attempted to work together with private housing developer to resettle the poor in Vasantek in Mirpur, Dhaka. It is perhaps the first attempt of the Government to work in partnership with NGO to provide urban poor housing. 80

4 The Bangladesh government had created a fund for slum dwellers so that they can easily obtain 7,560 flats under Vasantek Rehabilitation Project by The ministry had taken the Vasantek project with the estimated cost of Tk core at acres of government khas land at Mirpur in 1998 (wikimapia 2009). In 2002, the government appointed a construction firm - North South Property Development Limited (NSPDL) as a private partner to implement the project. The Ministry of Land had fixed Tk 2 lakh for 215 square feet of a flat for slum dwellers while it was Tk 3.55 lakh for 395 square feet for low income people. Each family got 450 square feet (30 x15 ) area which was planned to be paid off in 10 years by payment of monthly installments. The project was jointly funded by UNCDF, UNICEF and UNDP (Nawaz, R 2004). Unfortunately the flats were sold at higher prices to a group of people those were not the target group the government aimed at. Also it is claimed that the Developer could not maintain the terms and condition with the government. Therefore it was decided to cancel the project from the government side. 4. Methodology Designing housing in Bangladesh is one of the main projects in fourth year second semester design studio in the department of Architecture at the Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST), Dhaka. This year the authors as the design studio guide, proposed and developed the project titled Designing Low income housing at Vasantek, Mirpur, Dhaka for the students. The rationale for taking the project is to address the existing situation of urban housing for low income group and possibilities of the future architects to work in this area as there is a large demand for low income housing in Dhaka city to make our city more liveable and sustainable. The whole project is divided into three phases: Phase One: Background analysis of the project through desktop literature review, survey of the existing and other low income housing, actual site analysis, program development, analysis of foreign and local case studies, recommendation based on all the studies and lastly concept development. All the works are divided among five groups in the class. Phase Two: Analyse the issues of sustainability in five different areas from literature, local case studies and discussing with key personnel who is involved with or have experience of working in the areas of any of the issues. Phase Three: Design and development of the housing from master plan, unit design and related details. The design phase had five preliminary crits with design studio guides and invited guest teachers from other studio and a final presentation in front of a team of faculties from the department of architecture. Based on all the above works and final comments from the jury session, the authors have collected the information, did related literature survey, analyse the design options, compared with the existing housing in Vasantek and proposed the recommendations. 81

5 5. Result From Field Survey and Analysis 5.1 Site Analysis There is a slum on the eastern side of the site, right on the opposite side of the main connecting road with single storied katcha (temporary) buildings. The western side has a lake and the rest of the surrounding areas are open. According to the DMDP plan the site is located at the proposed mixed use spontaneous zone. The CRP hospital is the closest hospital to the site. 5.2 Problem Identification The related literature review on low income housing in Dhaka City and the field survey on local case study areas revealed the following problem areas: 1. Scarcity of land for low income housing: It is not possible for the urban poor to purchase land and build their houses on their own. Intervention of Government, Semi Government, Non Government and Private Organizations are essential pre-requisite to address this ever increasing problem for the urban poor. 2. Economy: The economic status of urban poor population inhibits them from buying land and constructing buildings on an authorized plot. Consequently they need support in a planned way, so that they can pay back in course of time. 3. Services: Lack of all kind of services (e.g. water, electricity, gas, sewage, waste disposal and so on) is paramount for the low income group. 4. Job opportunities and sources of income: For job most of the low income group try to stay close to their work place. So providing shelter away from work area is not the appropriate solution. 5. Physical Environment (including light, air, ventilation,): The majority of the houses in slums and squatters lack adequate light, ventilation and healthy living environment. 6. Crime Generation: Crime at different levels exists in the slums and squatters, thus the life of female and children in these areas are always at risk. 7. Safety and Security: Complete lack of safety and security in these areas cause frequent vandalism, fire hazards and related problems. 8. Lack of space: Lack of adequate in-door and out-door spaces causes problems at different levels. 9. Lack of Educational Facilities. 10. Lack of Recreational Facilities. 5.3 Design Considerations The program of the existing design was analysed in the context of the user s requirements and also as mentioned in the Housing Guidelines. The options developed by the students added the following facilities: a. Community work areas within the housing clusters to facilitate home based work opportunities, especially for females, to enhance their income. A part of the ground floors or near the vertical circulation on certain floors is used for the purpose. No covered parking is kept as in the existing design. b. Play field, open areas and out-door recreational areas for all age groups are provided in all the options. 82

6 c. Nurseries, schools as per housing requirement, night school for adults and training centers are designed. Night schools and training facilities will use school premises to optimize space use. d. Selling centers/ shops for the catchment area to market the community s products. e. Dedicated service areas are designed in each option(e.g. administrative, water supply, garbage disposal and reprocessing, electrical and mechanical rooms and so on) f. Water retaining area (Option 1 to 4) for use as per requirement. g. Rentable recreational areas (e.g. community centre) to back up service expenditure. h. Safety and security (Fire safety, ambulance access, internal security) i. Healthy living environment. j. Environment: a. Use of natural light b. Air and ventilation c. Avoid sound and air pollution 5.4 Sustainable Issues Sustainable design is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment and services to comply with principles of economic, social and ecological sustainability. For the Vasantek housing projects the students of each group worked on one of the following sustainable issues from literature review, discussed with key personnel who has knowledge and worked in the area to develop their ideas and propose its application in their design. The issues are: Use of Solar Energy Rain water Harvesting Water Recycling Waste Management Use of Bio Gas Among the above issues, the first four was found to be applicable within reasonable cost and maintenance. But the last need substantial investment. 83

7 Examples of the first two issues are given below: Traditional rain water harvesting in the villages in Bangladesh Figure: 01 Plastic sheet collection+ motka, capacity ; costs 150Tk ($3) assuminghousehold has motka, costs<1tk/l investment costs /water stored Figure: I ferrocement tank, NGO Forum Figure: 03 Metal sheet tank, 3000 l, Tk per litre construction: construction cost, incl. supply chain profit Figure: 04 Bladder tank 3000 litre in bamboo 0.6 Taka per litre construction cost, and incl. supply chair profit 84

8 Figure: 05 This project is done by Mr. Mashfiq Islam (Lecturer, Civil Dept, AUST) Over Head Water Tank Vent Pipe Shower WB WC Floor Trap Shower WB WC Floor Trap Over Flow Pipe Shower WB WC Floor Trap Waste Stack (Pipe) Shower WB WC Floor Trap Shower WB WC 1'-8" Floor Trap Shower 9' 6'-7" WB WC Floor Trap This project is done by Mr. Mashfiq Islam (Lecturer, Civil Dept, AUST) Types of solar collectors are used for residential applications: Flat-plate collector: Glazed flat-plate collectors are insulated, weatherproofed boxes that contain a dark absorber plate under one or more glass or plastic (polymer) covers. Unglazed flat-plate collectors typically used for solar pool heating have a dark absorber plate, made of metal or polymer, without a cover or enclosure. 85

9 Figure: 06 Solar panel Figure: 07 How solar panel works Figure: 08 Use of solar panel on building roof Figure: 09 Use of Solar panel The NGOs and micro-finance bodies like Grameen Shakti, Brac Foundation, Srijani, Coast Trust etc are providing solar panels. The information are collected by the student from above mentioned sources. 86

10 Table: 01 Available solar panel packages in Bangladesh By RAHIMAFROOZ packa ge System components Operating load Back-up hour/day Price (BDT) 20 Wp 1no 20 Wp PV module 1no 12V, 30 AH deep cycle battery 1no charge controller 2nos luminaries Mounting structures accessories 40 Wp 1no 40 Wp PV module 1no 12V, 55 AH deep cycle battery 1no charge controller 3 nos luminaries Mounting structure Accessories 50 Wp 1no 50 Wp PV module, 1no 12V 80 AH deep cycle battery 1no charge controller 4 nos luminaries Mounting structure Accessories 65 Wp 1no 65 Wp PV module 1no 12V, 100 AH deep cycle battery 1 no charge controller 5 nos luminaries Mounting structure Accessories 75 Wp 1no 75 Wp PV module 1no 12V, 100 AH deep cycle battery 1no charge controller 6nos luminaries Mounting structure Accessories 85 Wp 1no 85 Wp PV module 1no 12V, 130 AH deep cycle battery 1no charge controller 7nos luminaries Mounting structure Accessories 2 CFL 4 12,000 3 FTL 4 20,000 4 FTL 4 25,000 5 FTL 4 30,000 6 FTL 4 35,000 7 FTL 4 40,000 87

11 Table: 02 Compiled data on six Project (including the existing) 88

12 Table: 03 No. of population per Acre Population Population Existing Design Group 01 Group 02 Group 03 Group 04 Group 05 Table: 04 Open Area Build Area Ratio Group 05 Group 04 Group 03 Group 02 Open Area Build Area Group 01 Existing Design Percentage 89

13 Common Facilities Begum and Amin Table: 05 Percentage of Common facilities of different Groups (Including the Existing) Grave yard Garbage plant Power plant Parking Security room Service Administration Kacha Bazaar Pharmacy Food Shops Tailor Shops Statinary shops Saloon Laundry General Store Commercial Community Space Play ground Religious Education Health Group 05 Group 04 Group 03 Group 02 Group 01 Existing Building Percentage 90

14 Services Begum and Amin Figure: 10 Site Plan of Existing Design (Google Image) Figure: 11 Drawing of Site Plan Figure: 12 Building Plan Figure: 13 Unit Plan Table: 06 % of Services Existing Design Corridor Spaces Stair Kitchen (Common) Kiychen (Individual) Toilet (Common) Toilet (Individual) Existing Design Percentage 91

15 Services Begum and Amin Group 01 Figure: 14 Site Model Figure: 15 Cluster Model Figure: 16 Unit Plan Corridor Stair C. kitchen Table: 07 Percentage of Services Group 01 Corridor Spaces Stair Kitchen (Common) Kiychen (Individual) Group 01 Toilet (Common) Toilet (Individual) Percentage 92

16 Services Begum and Amin Group 02 Figure: 17 Site Model Figure: 18 Cluster Model Figure: 19 Unit Plan Table: 08 Percentage of Services Corridor Stair C. kitchen C. Toilet Corridor Spaces Stair Griup 02 Kitchen (Common) Kiychen (Individual) Griup 02 Toilet (Common) Toilet (Individual) Percentage 93

17 Services Begum and Amin Group 03 Figure: 20 Site Model Figure: 21 Flexibility in space design within the same module Figure: 22 Cluster Model Figure: 23 Unit Plan Corridor Stair C. kitchen C. Toilet Work Space Table: 09 Percentage of Services Group 03 Corridor Spaces Stair Kitchen (Common) Kiychen (Individual) Group 03 Toilet (Common) Toilet (Individual) Percentage 94

18 Services Begum and Amin Group 04 Figure: 24 Site Model Figure: 25 Cluster Model Figure: 26 Unit Plan Table: 10 Percentage of Services Group 04 Corridor Stair C. kitchen C. Toilet Corridor Spaces Stair Kitchen (Common) Kiychen (Individual) Toilet (Common) Toilet (Individual) Percentage Group 04 95

19 Services Begum and Amin Group 05 Figure: 27 Site Model Figure: 28 Cluster Model Figure: 29 Flexibility in space design within the same module Figure: 30 Unit Plan Corridor Stair C. kitchen C. Toilet Table: 11 Percentage of Services Corridor Spaces Group 05 Stair Kitchen (Common) Kiychen (Individual) Group 05 Toilet (Common) Toilet (Individual) Percentage 96

20 Figure: 31 Vsantek Housing at Mirpur Figure: 32 Vsantek Housing at Mirpur Figure: 33 Sketch done by students Figure: 34 Student project Figure: 35 Sketch done by students Figure: 36 Students Projects Figure: 37 Sketch done by students 97

21 6. Recommendation and Conclusion Housing problem in Dhaka city is an acute problem in terms of present high population growth rate, rural-urban migration, scarcity of land and related deteriorating social, economic and environmental factors. The present state of housing for low income group which constitutes 35% of city population will further deteriorate when it will reach to 50% in 2050, if proper measures are not taken in time. The contribution of urban poor to maintain day to day city life is not deniable fact. So it is the responsibility of all sectors from policy makers, financer, architects, and planners to all related sectors of housing to give proper attention to provide appropriate housing for the low income group of Dhaka city. The authors as studio guide felt an urgent need to make our future graduates aware of present urban problems, scarcity of all kind of resources, optimize the solutions taking care of relevant problems and priorities in Dhaka city with an idea that the lessons learnt will be useful for future planning and design in any urban context of similar situation. The lessons learnt from the survey, analysis and design can be summarized into the following recommendations and conclusions: The housing problems of low income urban population need to be addressed from different levels (e.g. planning, policy making, financing, design, implementation and continuing evaluation) The causes of problems and failures can be identified from existing housing analysis that will eventually lead to appropriate solutions. Appropriate measures need to be taken so that designed housing should be used by the target group that is the low income people. The tendency of low income group to sell out their property to higher income group need to be prevented from government level. From planning and design point of view the options exercised showed that if income generating activities and physical provisions can be given within the housing, the target users will be attracted to live in the community and uplift their economic status. Community participation in planning and maintaining the housing project is essential pre-requisite to make the whole project successful. From the city planning level it can be suggested that for the future 50% of Dhaka population there is no alternative than healthy, crime free, self sustaining and affordable housing. References BBS - Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics 2008, 2008 Statistical Yearbook of Bangladesh, 25 th edition, BBS, Bangladesh. Hamdi, N 1991, Housing without houses: participation, flexibility, enablement, Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data, New York. Islam, N, Huda,N, Narayan, F & Rana, P, eds. 1997, Addressing the Urban Poverty Agenda in Bangladesh, Critical Issues and the 1995 Survey Findings, Dhaka: University Press, Dhaka. Islam, N et al 2009, A Comprehensive Housing Development Program, The Daily Star. Urban, Published on 27 June

22 Nawaz, R 2004, Right to shelter: Bangladesh, International Conference on Adequate and Affordable Housing for All, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto, Canada. Rashid, M 2002, Housing at Uttara Model Town in Dhaka City: An analysis and exploring ways to tackle the housing problem of middle class, World Bank Document 2007, Dhaka: Improving Living Conditions for the Urban Poor, Bangladesh Development Series, Paper No. 17, The World Bank Office, Dhaka, June viewed 1 st May Wikimapia 2009, Dhaka, Vasantek Rehabilitation Project in Mirpur-14, Viewed 1 st May wikimapia.org/.../vasantek-rehabilitation-project-in-mirpur-14. Annexure One: Name the students worked on the housing projects organized and guided by the authors. Group 01: Abujar Gaffar, Nusrat Jahan, Md. Fahad Rasel, Rabia Akter Group 02: Nowrin Faria, Laila Ismat Jabin,Mohona Rahman Tabassum, Farzana Sharmin Group 03: Flora Roseline Tabassum, Ishita Moon Moon, Humayra Morshed, Rabeya Hossain Lina Group 04: Sharmin Bipasha, Imrul Islam Durrany, Syeda Raisa Hussain, Asif Iqbal Khan Group 05: Fahria Taifur Lamia, Tamanna Tabassum, Tarin Sultana 99