Infrastructural development in developing countries is usually attended by a lot of challenges, the most prominent being the tendency by developers and landowners to ignore laid down rules and regulations, especially implementing road setbacks in the siting of structures. This problem is very noticeable in Awka Capital Territory, which has witnessed huge violations of road setbacks in the siting of structures in the area.
Since the creation of Anambra state in 1991 there has been increase in the rate of infrastructural development in the State. This trend on its own has created what could be termed intractable problems especially with increasing rural-urban drift and as more civil servants move to urban cities of the State, especially its capital territory. It is a matter for concern that despite the existence of policies and regulatory mechanisms in the State for developers to adhere to regulations in the siting of structures, compliance with these
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regulations and processes of monitoring and implementation continue to challenge policy makers even as this non-compliance worsens.
From the course of this study,the concern about this issue of non-compliance has been attributed to a lot of factors which include lack of secure access to land, high cost of construction, limited access to finance, bureaucratic procedures, high cost of land registration and titling, uncoordinated policies and implementation, ownership rights under the Land Use Act, lack of critical infrastructure like roads, affordability gap, inefficient development control, youth harassment of developers, inelegant revocation and compensation process among others.
These factors are examined briefly:
The first relates to lack of secure access to land. There is no doubt that land is a critical factor in infrastructural development. Therefore, gaining access to it is very crucial to functional and sustainable infrastructural development. As Omirin (2002), noted, when we talk of accessibility to land we are actually talking about the security of land tenure, its affordability and the associated process of acquiring that parcel of land.Ikejiofor (2005), remarks that one factor that poses great difficulty in infrastructural development in any city is actually accessibility to land. Evidence about this assumption abounds. The cause of difficulty to access land, starts from the procedural delays being easily compromised by planning authorities and failure of law enforcement agents.
In Anambra State, especially the state capital (Awka Capital Territory) access to land is a huge problem. Thus, house owners, in a bid to maximize available spaces around their houses, construct unapproved structures as residential buildings. Desperate tenants are always willing to park into those houses whether completed or not. This is also true the construction of shops and petrol filling stations in ACT. It is not unusual to find filling stations within a few meters of residential building when construction is going on. In a bid to maximize available space, developers ignore regulations on road setbacks.
Experts have attributed the difficulty in achieving to the Land Use Act of 1978 (Cap L5 LFN, 2005) which created a dual structure of land delivery systems. As Ugonabo and Emoh (2013) pointed out customary and state systems prevail in the state with the consequence of double purchase from the customary owners and the state which has the effect of complicating land accessibility process. For instance some allottees of residential plots at Agu-Awka GRA cannot take possession of their land even with certificate of occupancy until they have paid the customary owners of the land supposedly acquired by the state government.But the researcher
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discovered in thecourse of this study through in-depth interview supported by the opinions of professionals and non-professionalsthrough PCA ranking on the causes of non-compliance with road setbacks in ACT, that double purchase from the customary owners and the State government, is not the major difficult attributein achieving land accessibility for urban infrastructural development but unnecessary procedural delays by compromised law enforcement agents and planning authorities.
The land use Act which vests ownership of all land on the Governors was enacted to make land more accessible for housing development. The Act still facilitates easier access to land and protect the proprietary right of customary owner.
Another factor is the high cost of construction in Awka Capital Territory. Over the years construction costs have remained high in ACT due to the relentless inflationary pressure on the building materials and labour market. This is not peculiar to the state, inspite of this, greed of the land ownersin a bid to maximize the available space around their houses is a major reason why people are siting illegal structures on open spaces around their neighbourhoods without regard to road setback regulations.
Other factors include limited access to finance; and high cost of land registration and land titling. The World Bank/International Finance Corporation (IFC) (2006), cited by Ugonabo and Emoh (2013), indicated that when it comes to property registration and transfer, Nigeria has the highest cost of 27.1% of property value, compared to other developed and developing countries of the world.
The report indicated that in Nigeria there are 21 procedures to be followed and the entire process of transfer also lasts up to 274 days. This trend has not changed in ACT,Anambra State. The general belief in the state is that it takes between 2-5 years to obtain certificate of occupancy even though the researcher could not confirm this assumption.
There is also the problem of development control. Development control process involves strict enforcement of building codes and ensuring compliance of regulations. This is not the case in ACT. In the course of this study, the researcher discovered a huge gap between these policies and implementation. Officials of the Town Planning Authority are guilty of compromising standards and looking the other way while road setback regulations are flouted with impunity.
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This dubiety by the officials of Anambra State Physical Planning Board (ASPPB) has been compounded by the uncoordinated policies and implementation of same by government. The major instrument used to administer land in ACT of Anambra State is the Land Use Act (Cap.
L.5LFN 2004 (originally decree No 6 of 1978).