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HOUSING PROBLEMS IN DHAKA CITY

Course No: ARC 4107

Course Name: Housing
Student Name: Ishraha Azima
Student ID: 16.02.01.002
Year/Semester: 4th/1st
Session: Fall-2019
 WHAT IS HOUSING?
-Housing is one of the most important life components giving
shelter, safety and warmth, as well as providing a place to
rest. Housing more generally means living spaces that refer to
the design and the designated use of those living spaces as
houses or buildings in a more collective sense rather than
being thought of as individually.
 CURRENT SCENARIO OF HOUSNG IN DHAKA
The most important element of housing is its collective nature.
There is a major difference between house (bari) and housing
(boshoti); the former refers to a single entity involving a
household while the latter begins with an ensemble of houses or
units. The ensemble or collective is not only a matter of quantity
but it also suggests a social and shared realm that is part and
parcel of a larger human habitation.

Housing problems occur both in rich and poor communities

across the globe and Dhaka is no stranger to those problems.
While Dhaka is rapidly modernizing, the housing problem still
remains.

Densely populated living conditions in Dhaka Slums for the lower income people
The rapid growth of Dhaka’s population has also led to greater
demand for housing units including land for housing but the
pattern of land ownership in Dhaka is highly skewed, Roughly
more than 56% households have no land in the city excluding the
slum and squatter dwellers (bastuharas). Had hey been
included, this figure would have been over 70%.
Dhaka housing market currently serves primarily the upper and
middle income households so most of the people in the city do
not own any land. As a result, renting in unplanned urban
periphery or squatting illegally is the only option available to
them.

Some critical issues encountered in Dhaka’s housing sector

include-
 Deprivation of the low income people in respect of housing
provision
 Inappropriate initiative to meet housing need
 Lack of diverse housing financing schemes for needy
households
 High land price limiting access to housing
 Absence of infrastructure in potential housing areas in the city
fringe
 Lengthy and cumbersome process of planning permission
 Lack of affordable housing

Large scale examples of housing in Dhaka, such as Bhashantek

Rehabilitation Project and Japan Garden City, and others, are
intrusions on the cultural landscape as well. They contribute
little to a historic continuity of our social living experiences or
the pattern of buildings that make viable urbanism.
 SOLUTIONS
It is the combination of economic and cultural strengths that
makes housing a factor in sustaining societies. Hence it is very
important to improve and maintain certain standards while
planning housing. First and foremost, to eradicate the problem
of housing or at least minimize it to a certain level, a clear
vision, set of initiatives and goals have to be implemented.
Some initiatives include:
 Improving the existing stock
 New housing
 Ensuring smooth and quality delivery
The conceptual pictures below demonstrate a few futuristic
visions for housing:

Visualizing cluster housing Visualizing housing that

type maintain agricultural land

Visualizing housing in coastal Studies on group housing

areas
Some methods to improve housing quality may include:
 Promote infrastructure and services in the potential and
designated housing areas
 Ensure adequate supply of land for new residential
developments
 Devise effective and workable housing financing mechanism
 Expedite and ease planning permission to increase the rate of
housing supply
 Public sector housing agencies should play greater role as
housing facilitator instead of housing provider
 Encourage block housing concepts
 Encourage to develop housing close to transit stations
 Encourage housing development within the dedicated urban
centers
 Create planned and environmentally sound housing
neighborhood in the potential urban areas

Some of the cluster type housing projects are in the very close
to the city heart while others are in peripheral areas such as
Japan Garden city in Mohammadpur, Rupayan city in the
periphery of Narayanganj town, Lake City Concord in Khilkhet,
Multiplan city in Mirpur-1 and Ridgedale of Navana in Mirpur 11
etc.
This kind of compact housing is appreciable in a land scarce city
like Dhaka.
RAJUK and NHA, as public sector housing agencies
should devise the conditions of healthy and livable
neighborhood and follow them while designing their
own housing layouts.
The housing neighborhood should implement these as well:
 Determine the appropriate urban design elements at
neighborhood level, such as sidewalk width and materials,
street lights and trees, and other street furniture.
 Promote the undergrounding of utilities and service lines.
 Neighborhood traffic management strategies to prevent
traffic from nearby developments and regional traffic growth
from intruding upon residential areas.
 Neighborhood should include a dense network of walking and
cycling routes results in short, varied and direct connection
that improved access to schools, community, services and
public transport.
 Hospitals would be provided with a green buffer zone to
make healthy residential area;
 Sufficient greeneries and waterbodies should be there to
enhance livability.
 There should be provision of mix of functions;
 Community spaces formation through complex public
facilities.

Concept diagram of block housing development Concept diagram of transit oriented development

Concept diagram of community neighborhood Concept diagram of pedestrian oriented development