Evaluation of building security costs determinant within the built environment in Minna, Niger state, Nigeria

Abstract

Building equipped with protective measures is exceedingly restricted but it brings about a moderately high increment in expenses of building security and the general cost of the home. This study aims at assessing the built environment experts’ perception of factors affecting the cost of maintaining security in houses as a part of sustainable building security cost. The study employed mixed methods sequential exploratory design to source data primarily from the respondents. Purposive and convenience sampling were used for data collection while descriptive statistics and inferential were employed for data analyses. The results revealed insignificant difference in respondents’ perceptions on building security costs. The top ranked respondents’ perceptions were from Builders, Quantity Surveyors and Architects with total mean scores of 267.08, 234.66 and 234.63. No significant variations were shown among the mean scores of the items ranked. This is an indication that all items are important therefore having effect on building security costs. The study concluded that external wall openings access prevention, size of building, perimeter fence and protection are some of the key criteria for measuring building security costs. The study sensitizes the built environment experts, criminologists and policy makers about the implication of the established factors on building security costs.

Keyword: Built-Environment, Building security, Cost determinant, Experts’ perceptions