Impact of zoning-based planning systems on housing affordability for the urban poor: The case of Kigali city, Rwanda.

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.