Building Regulations and The Development of Unauthorized Structures in Urban Ghana: A Case Study of the Tema Metropolis

ABSTRACT

The development of unauthorized structures has become one of the threatening problems associated with urbanization in developing countries. Multiple factors including institutional, socio-economic, political, physical and cultural contribute to this situation. The most dominant factor to deal with is institutional challenges which included the undue delays in the issuing of building permits, inability of the mandated institutions to effectively monitor and control on-going projects due to limited resources, and high building standards stipulated by the building regulations. These problems often make the processes cumbersome, and costly which pave the way for the enforcing officials to manipulate the system to their personal advantage. Socio-economic (levels of employment and income, and high cost of rent in the urban centres) and political factors (ineffective government housing policies, limited funding for city planning and the lack of political will to implement the regulations to the letter) followed in that order. The other factors the study considered were the physical and cultural. The development of unauthorized structures is accompanied by numerous socioeconomic-political consequences, and as such most scholars and governments have recommended a more vigorous approach in the application of urban land use planning policies and regulations/codes to deal with the challenges. This research therefore, attempted to examine the effectiveness of the National Building Regulations as a solution to the rapid growth of unauthorized structures in three selected communities in the Tema Metropolis. It also considered the effectiveness of the measures adopted by the city authorities in dealing with the challenge, the developers’ knowledge v and perceptions of the building regulations and their readiness to comply with them. It also delved into the major challenges impeding the effective implementation of the laws. Data were collected from property owners and developers in the three selected communities in the Metropolis namely; Tema Newtown, Tema Community 1 and Tema Community 25 to reflect the levels of disparity in the development of the communities. While the property owners were systematically selected to respond to a set of questionnaire, the Management staff of the Tema Municipal Assembly (TMA) and Tema Development Corporation (TDC) were interviewed as key informants. Focused Group Discussions were also used to solicit for additional information. The technique used in analyzing and presenting the data was the descriptive statistical tool. The descriptive tools adopted included the mean, mode and cross-tabulations. The analysis also used pie charts and histogram to give the data a pictorial presentation. The findings from the study revealed that the development of unauthorized structures persist despite the existence and recognition of building regulations in the Metropolis. In total, house-owners’ awareness of the building regulations of Ghana in the various communities were just average, with house owners in Tema Community 25 (which was the most developed among the three communities) having a more useful knowledge of the regulations followed by Tema Community 1 and Tema Newtown (the least developed) in that order. It was therefore, evident that unauthorized structures were more prevalent in the less developed communities than the more developed ones.