Non-compliance with building permit regulations in Accra-Tema city-region, Ghana: exploring the reasons from the perspective of multiple stakeholders

Abstract

Non-compliance is a major urban planning challenge in Ghana. Based on in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, the paper examines the complex and multifaceted factors that contribute to low or non-compliance with building permit regulations and planning standards in Accra and its environs. The paper uses the interviews to assess potential responses to the problem of non-compliance and its negative impacts. In doing so the paper contributes to wider knowledge and debate about the challenges of planning enforcement in contexts where regulatory power is weak and variable. Suggestions are made for overcoming barriers to planning compliance in the Accra-Tema city-region.

It is hoped that such an examination of the issues from multiple stakeholders’ perspectives will improve the knowledge of the dynamics of non-compliance so as to initiate effective planning strategies to address the problem. The paper makes specific recommendations to improve planning practices in the Accra-Tema city-region.

Keywords:

• Planning standards
• reasons for non-compliance
• stakeholder perspectives
• different approach to planning
• Accra-Tema city-region

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all study participants (district assembly officials, housing developers, artisans, and owner residents) who took part in this research. Their time and insights are greatly appreciated. We also appreciate the valuable feedback provided by the anonymous referees on the earlier versions. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the guidance and assistance provided by the Editor Heather Campbell throughout the review process.

Notes

1. Customary lands are intergenerational and governed by indigenous ownership and tenural systems based on trusteeship and include stool lands, skin lands, clan lands, and family lands. They are associated with a complex series of rights and interests which range from allodial (free-hold), through usufruct to tenancy.

2. Stool lands refer specifically to communal land held in trust and administered on behalf of an ethnic group or clan by a traditional leader, usually a chief, whose authority is derived from and symbolized by the stool the chief occupies. A similar usage is skin land where the symbol of the traditional leader's authority is the skin the chief sits on.