Towards Lowering The Cost of Houses in Palestine: New Perspective

Abstract

The main aim of this research is to develop an approach to lower the cost of housing while ensuring adequate environment and health conditions. This will ultimately enable more Palestinian people of limited income, especially in Gaza Strip to own their own houses. The specific objectives include investigation of cost influencing factors, determination of cost reduction criteria, proposing an approach to lower the cost of housing, investigating the significance of the developed approach using a real-life case study and developing prototype design example that satisfies the developed approach. The objectives of the research were achieved by reviewing relevant literature research, conducting interviews with Palestinian experts in the housing sector and by utilizing practical experience of the researchers. The developed approach consists of five phases. These are: Strategy, Planning and Design, Procurement, Execution, and Evaluation. New criteria for planning and design, new procurement procedure, optimal use of building materials, and proposing suitable financial programs were also developed. This approach will lead to create more housing units, introduce suitable area of the housing units, reduce the construction duration and reduce the project overhead. The real life case study showed a lowering of the housing cost to nearly 20% of total cost. The main recommendation for public and private housing sectors is to adopt the proposed approach when introducing new low cost housing projects either in Palestine or in any other country.