Building Regulations Assessment in Terms of Affordability Values. Towards Sustainable Housing Supplying in Palestine

Abstract

Achieving a sustainable supply of affordable housing is a strategic aim for the sustainable development of each country. This study highlights the relationship between local building regulations and the sustainable supply of affordable housing in Palestine. To do so, the paper assesses the building regulations in terms of achieving affordability in housing design. Thus, an assessment framework was developed based on learning from traditional design which proved to cover three values of affordability: collectivity, sharing, and diversity, as well as several factors of changes related to each of these values. The research data were collected through a survey of the opinion of 30 experts in the field of designing and building affordable housing in three main Palestinian cities: Nablus, Ramallah, and Jenin. The results showed that the need for values of affordability increases at the urban level compared to the single-building level. The paper's main finding is to establish an approach for a sustainable supply of affordable housing based on collectivity, sharing, and diversity. This approach can be a highpotential step for achieving sustainable development in Palestine. Therefore, several affordability-encouraging suggestions were made for improving the building regulations in Palestine based on the results of the paper.