Housing deficit: German model to the rescue

In a bid to arrest the growing housing deficit in the country, stakeholders in the real estate sector of Nigeria’s economy have urged government to adopt the cooperative social housing model seen in Munich which incorporates every class of German citizens without segregation.

This is against the trend in Nigeria where there is low cost and high cost housing schemes.

The housing policy in Germany is not linked to specific providers, but entails public subsidy of any kind of housing providers in exchange for the use of a dwelling for social purposes (enforcing income ceilings and lower rents) on a temporary basis.

Germany’s social housing model entails Integrated Housing and Labour Services in the Social Rental Enterprise model.

It is in the light of this that a team led by Arctic Infrastructure (AI) and Heinrich Boll Stiftung Nigeria (hbs) met officials of City of Munich, leadership of social and cooperative housing organizations and other influential stakeholders in the city development to learn on how to incorporate the system in the country.

According to renowned real estate expert and Managing Director, Realty Point Limited, Debo Adejana, who was in the team, adoption of this model in Nigeria social housing schemes will address the development of ghettos.

“Some of the positives derived from the visit will of course be adopted in Nigeria social housing schemes which can address the development of ghettos”, he said.

Similarly, another member of the team, Lookman Oshodi said the working visit coordinated by Mrs. Beate Adolf of Heinrich Boll Stiftung Berlin (hbs) and Ms Sophia Pritscher of the Department of Architecture, Technischen Universitat Munich (Technical University of Munich) was an eye opener.

According to him, some of the key learning points in Munich housing development are government funding support to the developers of housing for low income groups, market funding rate for housing below two percent, utilization of land for common good and city’s prosperity, land administration and management by local authority rather than state or federal government and city’s support to the local non-governmental organization to develop capacity in the social housing sector.

He stressed that findings from the visit will feed into the on-going housing delivery tool that will be part of platforms to engaging broad stakeholders in the Nigerian housing market.