SPATIO-TEMPORAL PATTERN OF LAND VALUES IN THE ZARIA URBAN AREA, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

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Author

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Department of Surveying and Geoinformatics

Zaria has for long attracted people from other places due to the variety of functions that it performs. Consequently, the pressure of population has led to increased demand for land, thus leading to a rise in land value as well as vibrancy in the land market. And the city has become polycentric, growing from having one centre to eight centre and sub-centres. Previous researches have concentrated on the analysis of either the spatial pattern or factors of commercial, residential or vacant land value, with the influence of Central Business District (CBD) in mind. This study rather took a more holistic approach, by considering the three facets of land use, as well as considering the influence of not only the CBD but also the urban sub-centres. A questionnaire survey was conducted on occupiers of commercial and residential properties across several transectsradiating out from the sub-centres. This was done using systematic sampling, where the first property along a transect was selected, then every fifth one was also selected, until the required sample size was obtained. For the vacant lands, the items were administered on estate dealers and agents, using snowball sampling. The Spearman‟s rank correlation coefficient was used to test the first hypothesis and to determine the spatial impact of sub-centres on land value while multiple regression analysis was utilised to test the second hypothesis and to unravel the variables that significantly explain the spatial pattern of land values observed. Trend analysis was used to describe the temporal pattern of land value, while Geography Information System (GIS) was used to show pictorially the pattern of land uses and land values. The results show that the first null hypothesis was tested and rejected for commercial land value, implying that commercial land values decline with distance from the urban sub-centres. Conversely, this was not the case for residential land value, as other factors played a greater role in influencing their patterns. For the temporal dimension, resultsshow that there was a general and continuous rise in land value for all the three aspects, except that the rate of increase was higher at different times. The highest mean commercial land value of N5,761/m2 was recorded around the PZ area in 2014, while least value of N4/m2 was obtained around Palladan in 1982. For residential land value, it was N4477/m2in the GRA and N2/m2around Zaria city, for the same periods. However, in the case of vacant lands, the highest mean value of N22,222/m2 was recorded at the GRA in 2012, but the least mean ofN0.6/m2at Zabi, still occurred in 1982. The reason adduced for highest vacant land value in 2012 was because the values went down (by an average of -20%) for the first time after that year. This was attributed to the security challenges – Boko Haram and apprehensions before the 2015 general elections. Again, it was shown that the land markets have influenced the pattern of land value, like the manner of land subdivision, design of areas and philosophy for owning rental property. Part of the contribution of the this work, is that land values do not rise only around the CBD, as put forward by classical submissions, but there are other minor land value peaks around sub-centre areas for commercial uses, as well as others around areas having some environmental qualities for residential uses. The critical role of infrastructure provision implies the need for the state government to expand live-enhancing infrastructure all over the area, to attract more value and consequently more taxes. Similarly, there is the need for long range housing development plan for Zaria, due to high demand e.g. by developing land banks with well-articulated development schemes. Furthermore, Government should allocate land to all density categories, not just the low density type.