It is everyone desires to have his or her own building, especially in this part of the world where government has failed in his responsibility to have good housing policies for it citizenry.
However there are other reasons why people embark on building projects apart from being a source for shelter.
Building project can be for investment purpose or for prestige. In some cases,in whatever reasons there is something important in which stakeholders in building industry, be it professionals,investors,or clients usually take into consideration and also prioritize in citing and executing building projects - location.
Location plays a major role especially where buildings are developed for investment
purposes. For instance,no investor will be daft enough to put his capital into building a shopping complex in less developed location or remote areas. Rather, central business district (CBD) would be a preferred location for such investment.
Apart from the fact that location will help investors or developers to recoup the capital invested within a short period. It also helps to maximize the profit.
Apart from returns on investment, location can also be considered in relation to social amenities and infrastructural development such as access roads, availability of power,heath care services,pipe borne water and as well as proximity to work places.
Asides general location discussed, another important aspect to building development is site location or selection. Choosing a site for particular project has a lot to with how successful such project becomes because a lot of factors has to be considered in choosing a site.
Generally,there are two types of site available for project, which are green and brown field. Both have merits and demerits that would be discuss at latter part of this write-up. Certain factors determine the type of site to choose.
(1) Scope of the project, which has to do with size of project in questions,that is the land area required for successful completion of the project.
(2) The clients budget:This goes a long way in determine the nature of site to choose wether to go green or brown depends on budget prepared for the project as will all know that building project is always capital intensive.
(3) Availability of professional who understands what needs to be done: Professionals here are not those in building industry because whichever sites, weather green or brown field, professionals in industry must be there in anyway.
But if brown field is choosing which maybe old site of chemicals industries in which land has been contaminated by chemicals products be rest assure you need professionals outside building industry to do the cleanup which is additional cost to the project.
(4) Lastly is availability or proximity to infrastructural facilities as well as other social amenities. This is applicable to general location and also determine the nature of site to choose.
BROWN FIELD
Brown field simply means land that has been previously developed or built on but lying vacant or unused.It is type of project that carries constraints related to the current state of the site.
It is a site or land with obsolete existing structure needed to be demolish to pave way for construction of new structure. It may be a site or land that has been used by chemicals industries thereby got contaminated by chemicals and required to clean up before it can be used again.
Most Brown fields are usually found or located in urban area because the land has been developed in the past and it is just been redeveloped,so mostly is not a vacant land like green Field.
Brown field site are usually redeveloped for housing, commercial building or developed as recreational center.
Some of merits or reasons why people choose brown field over green Field are
Location: At the inception of this article,I tried to analyzed the importance of location to building project, especially if the purpose is for investment.
Most investors though depending on the nature and purpose of project will prefer brown location as their investment destination to green building.
Urban Renewal: Choosing brown field is a form of urban renewal,which simply means transforming the old structures in inner city or communities.The essence of urban renewal is to redeveloped slum or decay in cities so as to provides or create opportunities for modern buildings, businesses and other form of development.
Another major reason while people chooses brown field is because of cost.Brown fields are cheaper because all vital infrastructures associated with development has already exist such as drainage, electricity, transport network and water.
Though it can be argue in other way round because the cost of demolition and evacuation of debris of existing structure or cost of cleaning up the site, especially if it has been previously used by chemicals industry may increase the total budget of investors.
GREEN FIELD
Green field is direct opposite of brown field.It is undeveloped land in rural or urban areas used for agriculture.Greenfield is synonymous to new project because it is kind of development taken place on virgin land.That is, land that has never been used for building structure or any form infrastructure.
The project will commence from the scratch without carries any constraints related to the current state of the site. Green Field project has its own side of attraction and rejection for developers.Some of reasons why it is preferred to brown field are
Flexibility: Flexibility in the sense that, the project as to start from scratch without any structure on land thereby gives developers option of designed something new without any recourse to demolition or adjustment of existing plan.
Development: Greenfield project present opportunity to developed rural or semi-urban areas because it is mostly found at outskirts of city,be it undeveloped or unused land so any project in such area brings about economic and infrastructure development to liberate such area.