City expansion, squatter settlements and policy implications in Addis Ababa: The case of Kolfe Keranio sub-city

Abstract

The current physical expansion trend of Addis Ababa discloses that it is expanding rapidly. And the horizontal expansion is the major form of development that the city has been undergoing throughout its history. The degree of the physical expansion of the built-up area of the city has outpaced the infrastructure and basic urban services provision capacity of the city government. The physical expansion of the city has occurred through legal land owners, real state developers, and squatter settlments. In Addis Ababa squatter settlments are mainly located in peripheral areas of the city.

 The study focusses on squatter settlments that are found in Kolfe Keranio sub-city. The principal objective of the study is to assess the causes and consequences of squatter settlments in the light of unplanned expansion of the built-up area of the city. And in order to achieve the objective of the study, a questionnaire survey covering a total of 230 sample household heads was carried out in Kebele 04 and Kebele O5 of the Kolfe Keranio sub-city.

 Major findings of the study indicate that the emergence of squatter settlements is the study area is the recent phenomenon that occurred after 1994. High building standard of the legal houses, belated response and procedural problems of the legal land provision, and high rent of houses in the city center were identified by respondents as causes of squatting in the study area. In addition to these causes, less governmental contol of open spaces, limited capacity of the code enforcement service to control illegal house construction , lack of a comprhensive legal response towards the problem of squatting, and the practice of land sale as a means of profit making by land speculators are some of the other factors that have contributed to the emergence and proliferation of squatter settlments in the study area. In comparing to the plot sizes of the legal land provision, squatter settlments in the study area have large plot sizes and teher are underdeveloped vacant fenced plots in between squatter housing units. Thus, land in the area is inefficiently exploited and the situation has greatly contributed to unplanned and rapid horizontal expansion of the built-up area of the city.