Abstract:
In Africa, the linkages between zoning planning and housing
affordability have not been adequately assessed. Elsewhere,
significant amount of literature have discussed the effects of strict
land use regulation on housing, with a large part of them converging
on the strong correlation between zoning strictness and inflating
house costs/prices. Where zoning system has been in force for a
long time like in the United States, it has been often labelled as
exclusionary due to how it limits the poor to access housing. With
zoning being at the heart of the current planning system in Rwanda,
this research aims at examining these linkages in an emerging urban
setting like Kigali city. This study employed mixed-method approach
to assess how the master plan and zoning requirements affect
housing cost and the ease of access to housing for low-income
households. Results reveal a total house supply gap of 30,000 units
between 2012-2020 of which more than a half is affordable housing.
While zoning code requires the use of largely imported materials
which increases the cost of housing, more than 70 per cent of
residents earn too minimal income to qualify for formal mortgage
loans. Therefore, the case of Kigali city emphasizes the mismatch
between zoning assumptions and underlying social and economic
conditions. Moreover, the euphoria to meet master plan objectives
encourages conversion of prevalent informal settlements into high end
market neighborhoods overlooking the negative impact on
housing affordability. This study suggests relaxation of zoning
regulations for certain income thresholds, re-defining affordability to
match the local context and generating housing affordability indexes
regularly to inform government’s urban housing strategies.
