ASSESSMENT OF SUSTAINABLE HOUSING AFFORDABILITY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN TWO PLANNED RESIDENTIAL AREAS OF KHULNA CITY

Abstract

'Sustainable housing affordability’ is a relatively new concept where housing affordability is assessed in context of sustainability. It is becoming an important concern in the context of sustainable urban planning due to growing housing demand and increasing housing costs. With the rapid urbanization rate, sustainable housing affordability is becoming a concern in Bangladesh as well. Being the third-largest city of Bangladesh, Khulna is also suffering from housing affordability issues. Planned residential areas also have sustainable housing affordability concerns, which have been revealed through this research. For this research, Sonadanga and Nirala residential areas are selected for sustainable affordability issues identification, assessment, and comparison.This paper reveals that the addition of social and environmental criteria along with the economical in the housing affordability assessment can bring a vital change in the outcome. The complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) of the multi-criteria decision-making method has been used to run the assessment and comparison. The methodology includes existing criteria selection and assessment in the study area through normalized weighted values based on the local people's perception. The outcome reveals that an assessment of housing affordability in a sustainable manner can identify the affordability issues in different housing locations more accurately than the method which includes the economic criteria only.