Jyoti Rao

Housing Markets and Housing Policies in India

Issues of housing in India are synonymous with ignorance of housing in active government involvement at the policy and program formulation levels. They are also due to the problems that unplanned urbanization, income disparity, poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment brought. These issues extenuated the housing problem, causing a housing shortage of 51 million in 2011. Though India has a long history of establishing policies, programs, and institutions to cater to housing, without allocating adequate resources, their impact in ameliorating the shortage has been marginal. This paper argues that to address the housing shortage in India, there is desperate need to prepare a framework for housing by (i) including housing as a constitutional right; (ii) resolving issues of unclear land titles and ensuing claims; (iii) building adequate financial resources for affordable housing programs; (iv) building responsive instruments to facilitate the affordability of housing by all income segments; and (v) overcoming market segmentation, which is currently catering to the housing needs of creditworthy clients and is overlooking the growing demand from middle- and lower-income segments. India needs to leverage its extensive architecture of agencies, policies, and market frameworks for housing by equipping them with adequate resources so they can deliver housing for all.

Capability approach to compulsory purchase compensation: evidence of the functionings of land identified by affected landowners in Scotland

Abstract This research was inspired by the challenges faced by landowners seeking adequate compensation for all their losses following the compulsory acquisition of land by public authorities in Scotland. This research uses Sen’s ‘capability approach’ and argues that the well-being contribution of land extends beyond its market value and therefore compensation payable following compulsory acquisition should include these other losses. The aim of this research is to identify the valuable functionings (or usefulness) of land from the perspective of the existing landowners. The functionings which contribute to their well-being can be both financial and non-financial and should be appropriately compensated. This research identifies and creates a list of valuable ‘functionings’ of individual landowners who have suffered losses due to compulsory acquisition, servitude and severance under various public projects in Scotland. Qualitative Content Analysis is applied to analyse case reports prepared by the Lands Tribunal for Scotland. In-depth analysis of 19 relevant cases is performed with the use of NVIVO software and reveals a list of 15 different functionings of land. Results show that financial functionings are the most frequently discussed at the Lands Tribunal. The debate on the loss of financial benefits from expected and planned development on land in the near future is the most debated topic by the landowners.

Housing Development in a Developing India

There is a massive housing shortage in India with 51 million people in 2011 without adequate housing. Although India has a long history of establishing policies, programs, and institutions to cater for housing, in the absence of adequate resources, their impact in ameliorating the shortage has been marginal. This chapter argues that to address Indias housing shortage there is a desperate need to assemble various pieces of a jigsaw, which include: (i) inclusion of housing as a constitutional right; (ii) resolving issues of unclear land titles and ensuing claims; (iii) building adequate financial resources for affordable housing programs; (iv) building responsive instruments to facilitate the affordability of housing among all income segments; (v) overcoming market segmentation, which is currently catering to the housing needs of creditworthy clients and is overlooking the growing demand from middle and lower income segments.

No Way to Say No : Stakeholder analysis for compulsory purchase for public infrastructure project in Australia

Purpose Property often forms the biggest component of household wealth and assets. Irrespective of landowners’ willingness, the act of compulsory acquisition abruptly ceases the security that this ownership carries. This often induces dissatisfaction among affected landowners over the: loss of “property rights”; loss of commodity, or property; and loss of future opportunities associated with the property. Though there have been attempts in various land acquisition laws and a practice to compensate acquirees for their loss, the dissatisfaction of acquirees has persisted. The persisting resistance of landowners compels deeper insight into the process of compulsory purchase and the compensation mechanism to understand underlying causes for resistance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of involvement of these different stakeholders, at various stages in the compulsory purchase process, using stakeholder interaction analysis. Results obtained from this research will be helpful in identifying the gaps in the process of compulsory purchase of land for public projects in Australia. Design/methodology/approach A survey of ten different stakeholder groups has been conducted to inquire the level of interaction of different stakeholders at various stages of compulsory purchase process. A comparative study was then performed to identify the gaps between the advocated process (suggested in the literature) and the process adopted by stakeholders. Findings The results illustrate that: affected landowners seek involvement at the initial stage when the project plan is under preparation and compulsory purchase declaration are not finalised; objectors (from the public) seek opportunities to convey, to the public agency, their views even though the accountability of public agencies towards this stakeholder is nil; and strong interactions are established during negotiation over the compensation amount thus signifying the urge of acquirer and acquirees to avoid monetary losses and time delays. Originality/value This research will be useful in identification of pain points in the compulsory purchase process for public projects. This shall help in evolution of fairer mechanism of land acquisition.

Delhi's Changing Built Environment

This book charts the political, economic and social forces that drove development in India generally and in Delhi in particular, and investigates the drivers and constituents of Delhi’s urban landscape.

Applying ‘capability approach’ to the identification of losses to landowners in land acquisition cases in Scotland

This research is inspired from the existing challenges of compulsory acquisition of land by public authorities in Scotland. The exercise of the power of compulsory acquisition is a common instrument of land procurement for public projects and is often resisted, by the affected landowners, for various reasons. There is continuous effort at policy level to harmonise the procedure and derive fairer compensation mechanism for the loss of land and property rights. The first step towards achieving this bigger objective will be to understand the role of land and property in the overall well-being of an individual landowner. In this context, this research identifies and creates a list of valuable ‘functionings’ of individual landowners who have suffered losses due to compulsory acquisition, servitude and severance under various public projects in Scotland.The method of Qualitative Content Analysis is applied to analyse case reports prepared by the Lands Tribunal for Scotland. In depth analysis of nineteen relevant cases is performed with the use of NVIVO software and a list of eighteen functionings is obtained towards the end. Results state that financial functionings are most frequently discussed at the Lands Tribunals. The debate on the loss of financial benefits from expected and planned development on land, in the near future, is most debated topic by the landowners.Findings from this research can be advanced, in future research, to create a universal list of functionings offered by land and ownership rights that shall help in understanding the role of landownership in well-being of the landowners.

Housing in South Africa

This chapter presents a comprehensive review of housing institutions in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, the political leadership has had the task of meeting a huge housing backlog and doing so in a way that is sensitive to cultural expectations, is manageable in a developing country with low capacity, and that empowers Africans through homeownership within the framework of the prevailing spatially segregated urban form. The South African Constitution codifies housing as a human right. An initial goal of the government was to create housing policies that provided compact and equitable cities. Despite the well-intended ambitions, there have been manifold problems associated with the delivery of both quantity and quality of government-provided homes. These problems range from what comprises housing, to the legality of land occupation, to the institutionalization of citizenship, and South Africans are left waiting for the state to fulfill their housing promise. The chapter concludes that, despite the extensive and progressive nature of housing provision in the country’s founding document, the South African state has failed to live up to its promises to the poor to provide housing and equality of opportunity. Apartheid-era spatial segregation persists across South African metropolitan areas, despite progressive policies. While this can be partially attributed to the ambitious nature of the constitution, there have also been fundamental flaws in the policy mechanisms developed by the state.

China’s Land and Housing Reforms: An Institutional and Empirical Timeline

This chapter argues that significant and conflicting forces are at work within Chinas political and economic systems, creating tensions in the provision of housing. An issue the country will need to address in the near future is the very high cost of urban housing. Despite its one-party governance structure, the Chinese Communist Party does seem to be largely responsive to the demands of its citizens when it comes to housing reform and assurance of tenure rights. However, significant populations do get left out of the increasing prosperity, for instance: both old and young who are trying to enter the housing market for the first time; rural people; people who migrate seeking prosperity; and those whose lands and livelihoods are being encroached upon by expanding cities. This chapter finds that despite the large number of people living outside their hukou status, China does not have a majority of informally housed populations, like Brazil for example. It does not suffer from an institutionalized and dependent population that is desperately poor and waiting for the state to provide housing, like South Africa. Subsequent reforms have attempted to balance the rights of the people against economic growth and development via the housing industry, and have often extended rights that had previously been taken away or diminished. Encouragingly, China’s housing policy reforms have been largely effective, as evidenced by the one-generation shift toward a vast majority of homeowners, and will likely continue to serve the population as they vacillate toward a fair and equitable, and prosperous, system.

Housing in Russia

The challenge faced by the housing market in Russia is not one of quantity but of quality. Russia has approached housing from the perspective of a constitutional right to housing, implemented with very strong government involvement. During the pre-reform period, the government took on the responsibility of developing, allocating, and maintaining housing. This chapter reviews the range of institutions that were developed to enable government to deliver on these rights, pre- and post-reform. However, an evaluation suggests that the pre-reform approach led to a rule-book type of implementation, which caused an inadequacy in housing availability, a lack of privacy among dwellers in same unit, a deterioration in the quality of living spaces, and an unsatisfactory level of amenities. Reforms that followed perestroika, from the 1990s, led to economic and political liberalization. A major consequence of these reforms was that the institutions that emerged during the communist regime started crumbling, while the institutions of a market economy had not yet taken root. The privatization and restructuring of the economy that took place left government starved for finances. While the right to housing remained a constitutional obligation, government started to take a more liberal view in its implementation by allowing private ownership, facilitating the development of housing finance, and involving the private sector in the development and maintenance of housing stock.

Toward a Philosophical Evaluation of Housing for All in BRICS Economies

Following discussions in earlier chapters this one adds another dimension by utilizing Sen’s capability approach to ask whether housing as a good has created capability for individuals (defined by the functionings of being well-sheltered and having financial security) in the countries studied. Depriving individuals of these functionings is a failure on the part of the countrys institutions, which have not been able to convert the characteristics of housing good into capability. This also allows countries to be compared, institutional arrangements analyzed and outcomes evaluated. This chapter illustrates how all these countries have failed to provide a well-sheltered society. The nature of this deprivation, though, differs: in Brazil it is measured as housing quantity and quality; in Russia in terms of housing quality; India shows deprivation in the form of quantity and quality; while Chinas problems relate to affordability and quality.