Developing A Property Information System for the Effective Management of 777 Housing Estate Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria

Abstract

Given the acute shortage of housing in Nigeria, most states governments’ have been making attempts to reduce the housing deficit through direct public housing construction. The 777 Housing Estate is one of such estates currently under the control and management of Borno State Housing Corporation. The efficient management of these housing estates is dependent on the availability of good, reliable and timely information, which is not feasible under the current manual method of record keeping by the Borno State Housing Corporation. This study essentially developed a Property Information System using GIS techniques. It involved the scanning of the layout plan of the study area and then geo-referencing in ArcGIS 10.2 using GPS coordinates of reference points obtained from prominent positions within the Housing Estate. All housing units and other features within the Housing Estate were digitally delineated (digitized). Records of tenancy of house owners were extracted from their personal files domiciled at the Borno State Housing Corporation to create an attribute database, which was later, integrated with the digitized house parcels. In addition, a digital camera was used to capture the passport photograph of each house owner and hyperlinked to the digitized house parcels to create a robust and reliable GIS-based property information system. Since the system is comprised of both spatial and attributes data for each housing unit in digital form, it is possible to edit, maintain, rectify and keep property records up-to-date with minimum efforts. The system created was able to support query analysis to aid the effective and efficient management of the 777 Housing Estate by the Borno State Housing Corporation. It is recommended that the Borno State Housing Corporation (BSHC) should establish a GIS unit that would see to the computerization of all its analogue data into digital formats.

Keywords: Housing, Records, Database, Information system, Management