7. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN COMMUNITY-DRIVEN HOUSING?

The government has an important role to play in community-driven housing. It should create an enabling environment in which community-driven housing can take place and thrive by ensuring that housing policies, planning processes and building regulations make allowance for community-driven housing.  For example, the government can relax ‘set-backs and building lines to allow development close to side and rear boundaries and to allow commercial streets to develop’[1]. They could also introduce ‘classes of permitted development, within which planning permission is not needed.’[2] Through their building inspectors, municipalities should also support households with monitoring of construction quality and ensuring that builders rectify unsatisfactory work.

[1] Tipple, G (2000) Extending Themselves: User-initiated transformations of government-built housing in developing countries, Liverpool Pool University Press, Liverpool.

[2] Ibid; and Tipple (2000, p156) states that ‘in Britain, for example, an extension up to 70m³ (or 15 percent of the original volume whichever is the greater) can be added to the rear of a dwelling for residential use by the household without requiring planning permission.’