DETERMINATION OF OPTIMUM SITES FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN AKURE NORTH AND SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS

Abstract

This study intends to determine optimum sites for urban development in Akure North and South LGAs, Ondo State, with the following objectives; (i) To determine the priorities for the selection of suitable location for potential urban development areas and (ii) To carry out Land Suitability Analysis (LSA) using various parameters for urban development with the aid of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). In this study, four major criteria such as; connected city, compact city, safe city and flat terrain city were used to determine areas suitable for new urban development. Weights were assigned to all these criteria based on their importance to urban development using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), in which Safe city criteria had the highest weight of 0.48 (48%), followed by compact city with 0.24 (24%), and flat terrain city and connected city had 0.16 (16%) and 0.12 (12%) respectively. These weights were then multiplied with their respective factors (layers) and overlaid to give a map showing suitable areas for potential urban development. The land suitability map indicated that very suitable areas for urban development are located around Eleyowo, Moreya, Orita, Boluwaduro, and Imafon axis etc., which are situated in Akure North LGA, are most suitable for urban development. Areas such as Idita, Oke-Apedu, Araromi axis, which falls within Akure South LGA, are also suitable as they all fall within the suitable class of the land suitability. The results also showed that approximately 29.1 km2 of undeveloped areas of the study area (Areas not built) are very suitable for potential urban development, 41.8 km2 for suitable, 21.3 km2 for Moderate and 7.8 km2 for unsuitable areas. The research was able to provide ways of determining optimum sites for urban development in Akure North and South LGAs, and also a proper planning for the expansion of Akure suburb towns by way of urbanization. The major recommendation of this research is for the stakeholders of urban planning and development such as; Government, Professionals (Urban Planners, Surveyors etc.), Estate Developers etc. should use this research as a guide to expand the urban areas of Akure South and North LGAs of Ondo state as it has analysed various criteria which may affect urban areas and was able to select the best areas for locating potential urban areas.