ABSTRACT
The objective of this paper is to examine Challenges of Land Availability for Residential Development in Benin City. The population for the study comprised of fifty (50) staff of the Ministry of Lands and Housing and some members from the selected communities in Benin City.
Four (4) research questions were raised to guide the study and a descriptive research design was adopted for the study. A well-structured questionnaire was the instrument used to elicit information for the study, and data collected were analyzed using the descriptive statistical method
The data analysis depicts the simple frequency and percentage of the respondents as well as interpretation of the information gathered. The findings of the study revealed that most of the lands for residential development in Benin City has been lost to gully erosion which results from torrential rainfall; that lands for residential development can be acquired from Real Estate Developers, private land owners, community Heads and youth leaders of the community; it was also discovered that land grabbling is a serious factor that affects the availability of land for residential development in Benin City; and also, the industrial urbanization of Benin City has made availability of land for residential development difficult etc.
It was recommended that the attention of the government (i.e. ministry of works) should be drawn to the avoidable issue of land lost due to gully erosion in Benin City, that the government should set up a committee that would be saddled with the responsibility of dealing with the issues of land grabbing in the state, the study also recommended that the state government should make public, the names of accredited Real Estate Developers in the state so that potential land buyers would not fall victim to false or unaccredited real estate developers etc.
