Affordable housing projects by public and private developers:

Housing refers to both the physical product and the process of its attainment. Housing is perceived according to its performance and its usefulness varies with the level of comfort and hygiene it provides. The importance of people in housing is recognized not when housing complies with municipality by-laws, but when people live in it and is acceptable in a community.

Housing also means privacy and is an expression of ways of life, aspirations, and social and cultural relationships. Therefore, housing is the provision of comfortable shelter with available infrastructure, services and facilities that address people’s needs. Sarbagita Metropolitan, Indonesia has large affordable housing provided by both public and private developers. In fact, the fast-growing affordable housing projects have not assured the delivery of better quality of physical, infrastructure and public facilities.

This paper will try to investigate the role of households as consumers and the role of developers in providing better quality low-cost housing projects in Sarbagita. By using some indicators, the various modes of affordable housing project provision in Sarbagita Metropolitan Bali will be examined, including public and private housing projects. The data were gathered using observations, interviews, questionnaires, and documentation techniques from project sites, stakeholders, developers, and dwellers.

Data collected were then analyzed qualitatively to make findings and draw conclusions and recommendations. The result shows that the low-quality affordable housing provision is often unsuitable for dwellers because of developer constraints, and the lack of power or means of households to direct or influence the inception or delivery of the projects. Some recommendations will be proposed in this paper to improve the quality of affordable housing project provision for dwellers in Sarbagita metropolitan.

Architects, planners, and builders involved in housing provision need to understand that the value of a house is not merely a place to live, but should have a variety of functions for people. Good quality housing design must be able to respond to a range of human needs (Heywood, 2004; Imrie, 2004a). The meaning of a house’s needs should be taken into account by policymakers in housing provision. Housing has also a diversity of meanings to reflect human needs. Blauw (1994) identified the meaning of a house as having five functions. First, shelter is considered to be the most basic function of a home and neighborhood.

Second, the utilitarian function is identified – the facilities that the dwelling and the neighborhood carry out (activities such as cooking and washing) and third, the domain functions – the home as one s own territory, a place that guarantees the dweller‟s privacy. Fourth is the social function – the facility to communicate from the home base with the outside world. And, fifth is the symbolic or cultural function of a house (Blauw, 1994).

The meaning of housing is more complex than merely people’s way of sheltering themselves from the weather and coming to terms with the environment. It is also an expression of their culture and way of life, of who they are as individuals, as a social group or community.

It is also an indicator of people ‟s fears and prejudices. For some, it is a symbol of pride; for others, a symbol of inferior social status and poverty. It seems that a house and neighborhood present possibilities for preferences or design choices as a living symbol of a way of life and the subsequent values that the residents want to be associated with (Blauw, 1994; Bhatti and Church, 2004).

Housing as shelter reflects levels of living, welfare, safety, personality and culture (Silas, 2001). Housing cannot be seen merely as being a living and infrastructure-facilities function, for it also involves a settlement process and functions as a way for people to communicate with the environment (neighborhood, society, natural surroundings).