Property-use conversion in Lagos metropolis in the context of the vacillating regulatory approaches of the physical development agency

Abstract

The lopsided focus of research on metropolitan housing deficit, which preponderantly neglects the import of use-conversion of properties in the assessment of the problem, motivated this paper. Primarily, it analyzes the inter-use dynamics of the housing-stock in metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria, employing the field-survey method to draw out random samples of buildings from streets that were compiled through stratified-cum-random sampling processes. Its objectives are two-fold.  First, it examines the pattern of inter-use conversion of buildings among Lagos’ criterially-delineated metropolitan regions. Two, it examines the extent to which altering the criterion used in sub-regionalizing Lagos into different genres of metropolises can change the capability of the model which attempts to predict use-conversion for the metropolis; including exploring the relevance of the obtained results for enhancing physical development regulatory strategy in the metropolis. Its findings among others show that the current usage of buildings differs in varying degrees among the delineated metropolitan regions, while inter-use conversion pattern generally under-favours residential-housing usage. A logit-model analysis of the capabilities of the two alternative metropolitan expressions of Lagos to show clarifiable differences in the pattern of use-conversion among their respective individual sub-regions, throws up the importance of applying strategies that are enriched with spatial thinking in actualizing housing-related policy and planning regulations in the metropolis. Conclusively, the paper stressed the need for researchers to task their innovative capabilities in devising appropriate criteria for generating spatial configurations, which are contextually-relevant to individual metropolises, as they tackle use-conversion of the housing stock and related issues in such cities.

Keywords: Lagos metropolis, Building-use-conversion, Residential stock, logit model