Affordability and Housing Preferences for New Urban Housing Projects - The Development of a more Integrated Approach

A fundamental change in the planning and delivery of new housing projects has taken place in the last years, with the focus shifting towards adding value to projects based on a better understanding of housing preferences. In the Latin American region the importance of improving the quality of life in new social housing projects has become in the last years a major concern, due to the poor quality of the products offered and thelow acceptance by the population. This concern for quality, however already present years ago in the housing policies region was not thoroughlyarticulated, because Governments had to prioritized quantity over quality of the products due to the urgency to respond to the enormous housingdeficits.  Countries such as Chile, followed by Peru were one of the first ones to adopt a new line of action, considering peoples preferences in the provision of social housing projects.
 
This research focuses in the development of a simulation tool, for modelling costs, prices, quality and housing preferences, in order to integrate the different issues of a trans-disciplinary approach for providingmore successful and affordable new housing projects. The approach is based on a new paradigm of research for investigating housing affordability: trans-disciplinarily, covering and crossing the fields of different disciplines and including the participation of different actors in the housing process. As a practice-oriented approach it is not confined to theacademic circles where knowledge is produced, but to users in society and all others participants in the housing process as concerned industries, business and governmental and non-governmental organizations.
 
For this research a model was developed, based on a case study and in a survey performed in the city of Guayaquil-Ecuador, and information obtained from field work research was used to test it. The methodused for obtaining data from respondents in the survey was the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), through the direct questioning of individuals over their willingness to pay for additional improvements of housing characteristics.
 
Then, in order to introduce preferences from survey to the simulation tool, as quantifiable parameters, a methodology using utility curves based on peoples preferences was developed. Those curves represent the additional value given by housing users for preferred housing characteristics.  The different parts of the model along with data requirements for each part are described. In the model different housing issues are considered for the simulations, as design, costs, prices, quality evaluations and cash flow planning at different housing levels as urban and housing levels.
 
Model results give insights over housing users preferences for better and affordable urban environments, at one hand, andallowing to the developer to reach reasonable profit at the other hand.Implications and limitations of the model for including housing preferences considering local conditions and cultural values are analysed.  The study concludes with the identification of the most optimal combination of housing characteristics and number of housing units per housing types that will lead to an increase value of the project, translated in more reasonable profits for developers and the provision of better, more affordable and accepted projects for housing users.  

Keywords:Guayaquil, peri-urban development, low and medium income groups, affordable housing

Disciplines:Structural engineering, Other civil and building engineering

Project type:PhD project