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.’

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