Pakistan: Incremental Housing of Low-Income Housing in Lahore

Introduction:

Pakistan has been facing rapid urbanization. The large cities in Pakistan such as Lahore, are facing an acute shortage of low-income housing, particularly for the low income group.  In Lahore, with a current population of nine million and a growth rate of 3.5 percent, approximately 300,000 people are added every year. Out of these around 80 percent are forced to find shelter in slums and squatter settlements, locally known as Katchi Abadis. The planned housing stock developed by the Lahore Development Authority and the private sector developers caters for the high and middle income only.

The Main Issues Of Low-Income Housing In Pakistan

The following are the main issues of Low-Income Housing in Pakistan:

1. There is a big gap between the cost of decent, authorized and planned housing and the affordability of the low income people.
2. The self-help potential (clearly demonstrated in the construction of squatter housing) of low income people has not been utilized.
3. Poor people are unable to obtain proper housing because of their low incomes. But poverty eradication through income generation programs was never made a part of the low income housing programs.
4. In the past, the government did not take any concrete steps of enabling, controlling and facilitating low-income housing. As a result, the gap between demand and supply of low-income housing could not be closed. Similarly, no research was sanctioned for finding solutions for resolving the issue of low-income housing.

Various types of housing programmes were introduced in Pakistan to deal with the above issues, but most of them failed to resolve the problem of low-income housing.

Failure Of Programs Aiming At Construction Of New Housing For Low-Income People:

1. The Public Housing Programs such as Sodiwal Quarters, Riwaz Garden Flats of Lahore etc. failed due to their insufficiency in number (as against the huge demand) and lack of understanding of the requirements of the poor people.
2. The Core housing program of Lahore Township and Green Town schemes failed due to their poor construction and inadequate design. Later they were occupied by middle income people and re-constructed with change in design.

The Sites and Services schemes which are currently in vogue, have not served the poor people. The small plots (5 Marla or less) reserved in public schemes have been occupied by higher income groups and are now out of reach of the poor people. The private schemes do not cater for the low income people since the developers are interested in profit making.

Khuda-Ki-Basti (KKB) Project, Hyderabad, Pakistan:

The Khuda-Ki-Basti (KKB) project was initiated by the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA), Hyderabad, Pakistan by a Planner Azharuddin Khan and Mr. Tasneem Siddiqui, the then Director General of   Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA). This was a low-income housing site and services scheme introduced in the low-income housing blocks of Gulshan-e-Shahbaz, Hyderabad. It was developed as an answer to various problems of the common public sites and services schemes launched by various development authorities in Pakistan.

It was noticed that the existing sites and services program had failed to house the majority of low-income people who needed a house. Thus the people of low-income housing were marginalized from the public housing schemes and were forced to live in the slums and Katchi Abadies. The KKB project provided a departure from the existing system of provision of housing to the urban poor.

Recommendations For Low-Income Housing In Pakistan:

The following recommendations are made in light of the review of the traditional low-income housing programs and the best practice of KKB available in Pakistan:

1. Development of KKB Type Housing Schemes as a part of Master Plans:

The Government of Pakistan, through proper Town Planning legislation, should ensure the preparation and implementation of Master Plans for all the cities and urban areas of the country. The local planning authorities should develop several local district plans continuously for larger areas as part of the Master Planning process. These local plans should be developed by the government and should contain large shopping centres, major roads, trunk infrastructure and sites for higher-level public facilities such as hospitals and colleges. The Low Income Housing programs should be launched in every city as a part of the Master Plan which should provide policy guidelines regarding the housing supply, space standards and the location of housing schemes to be developed by private and public sectors. The low-income housing should be developed in the form of Khuda-Ki-Basti schemes as a part of the Master Plan.

2. Cross Subsidy Housing Schemes:

The existing private and public sites and service programs should be modified by incorporating the concept of KKB schemes to accommodate low-income people adequately. It is recommended that all public housing schemes should reserve 75 percent plots of 3, 4 and 5 Marlas (average size of 4 Marlas) for low-income people, 20 percent plots having an average size of 10 Marlas for middle-income people, and 5 percent plots of 1 Kanal each for the high-income people. This type of housing scheme will have an equal distribution of land under developed plots between low-income groups and the middle plus high-income groups.

Conclusion:

The provincial governments should identify vacant state lands in and around the cities and build multistory flats such as Pakistan Housing Authority (PHA) flats. Fifty percent of these flats may be allotted to low-income people on an instalment basis, while the rest of the flats may be provided to low-income people on a rental basis at subsidized rents. This type of housing may also be developed by the local councils (TMAs) on the pattern of Council Housing in the United Kingdom and other developed countries.

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