CHALLENGES OF HOUSING COOPERATIVES AND THE IMPACT ON PERFORMANCE OF THE PROJECTS: THE CASE OFSILTIE ZONEHOUSING COOPERATIVES

Abstract

Construction industry is universally criticized due to failures to deliver projects on their planned objectives. This situation is severe for housing cooperative buildings which are executed with limited saving sources. The purpose of this paper is to assess challenges of housing cooperatives and the impact on performances of the projects in Siltie Zone, Southern Ethiopia. To achieve the intended objectives mixed design method is used. To get primary data, 111 questionnaires were distributed to engineers working in urban development and construction department, contractors and housing cooperatives. RII and Kendall’s coefficient of concordance analysis techniques were applied by using MS Excel and SPSS V-26. Analysis result has revealed that the top five construction phase challenges are stemmed: fluctuation of construction material price; absence of options to get and manage financial shortages from financial challenge clusters; and absence of local financial initiatives; lack of access to infrastructural services; problem of similar design schemes and rigidity from institutional challenge clusters are identified as critical factors. Also, results unearthed that impact severity of construction phase challenges on cost and time performance is as severe as high. Specifically, impact severity of financial challenge clustertechnical specifications and cost should be properly prepared; mobilizing resources at right time; and hiring competent labor and contractor are the top four mechanisms to improve construction phase performance of housing projects. From the results special attention to housing program by government is recommended as the basic and central to solve the aforementioned construction phase challenges. The results may enable construction project managers, designers, contractors, local government and policymakers in broad to be integrated on enhancing construction phase performance of housing cooperatives in the study area and elsewhere similar to this study. Keywords Construction Phase Challenges, Housing Cooperatives, Impact on Performance, Improvin