ABSTRACT
Developing world cities are characterized by weak administrative and managerial capacity for environmental planning. Benin City, Nigeria is no exception. Benin’s environmental problems result largely from its unplanned land use and weak development control. These problems include lack of open space, substandard housing and an increasing volume of refuse. The administrative arrangements to handle environmental problems include The Town Planning Division, which enforces building and housing codes and land use regulations; and the task force on environmental sanitation responsible for solid waste management. However, these arrangements have not produced satisfactory results.
This research is aimed at examining development control in relation to environmental problems in Benin City with a view to isolating other factors that influence them. Four (4) research questions and two (2) hypotheses were postulated in order to guide the study. The sampling method adopted for this study is systematic random sampling. A sample size of 285 household across four (4) Local Government Area (L.G.A) in Benin City was adopted.
The statistical technique used in testing the hypothesis was Spearman correlation analysis. The result indicates that there is a weak correlation between development control and environmental problems. The researchers finding therefore indicate that when there is strong and effective development control, environmental problems will be greatly minimized. This illustrates the existing gap between the two parties. It also shows the utter disregard for development control regulation in Benin City.
Therefore the study proposes, mass enlightenment campaign, the strengthening and restructuring of the development control agency as well as the operations of the agency, periodic review of the development control standards as pragmatic solutions to haphazard development in Benin City.
The main keywords derived from the topics are;
1] Development Control and 2} Environmental problems
