Affordable Housing & Green Buildings

In recent years, interest and activities related to green building have been on the rise. As builders, architects, and code developers shift toward energy-efficiency and greater use of responsible materials in housing, the benefits of these shifts are also influencing affordable housing. Green building and affordable housing priorities intersect strongly around desires to reduce operating costs for building occupants, and they can also create synergies for supporting local needs and values, utilizing responsible materials, and designing self-sustaining sites with minimal environmental impacts.

As per the discussion above While rapid urbanisation and growing cities provide various opportunities, there are fallouts in terms of proliferation of slums, high prices of land and building materials which render houses unaffordable for the segment at the bottom of the pyramid. Therefore, the need for adequate housing for the low-income groups will substantially increase.

MoHUPA has estimated the housing shortage of 18.78 million during the 12th Five Year Plan (FYP) period of which over 95% of this housing shortage is estimated in the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Low Income Group (LIG) categories. To address this shortage, intensive efforts are required to substantially increase affordable housing stock.

Most importantly, while we create housing for these sections of the society, they need to be green too. The principles of green and sustainability are fortunately or unfortunately community-agnostic, in the sense that they also need to handle wastages a bit more carefully, be thrifty in the usage of energy & water, handle waste in a hygienic manner to avoid outbreak of epidemics, reduced use of virgin materials and above all enhance their own quality of lives.