By Abrar Saeed ISLAMABAD, Nov 08 (INP-WealthPK): Although the majority of Pakistanis are still hesitant to living in high-rise buildings, vertical growth in housing sector is the only answer to the growing population, massive migration of people from rural areas to the cities, and ever-increasing housing needs of the people living in the urban centres. With the population growth rate of 2.4 per cent per year and a population of 207.7 million as per the 2017 census, Pakistan is the seventh most populated country in the world. The country’s urban population is growing at the rate of 2.7 per cent fuelled by the massive rural to urban migration. The urban housing demand in Pakistan is 350,000 units per year. Of this, 62 per cent is for lower income groups, 25 per cent for lower-middle income groups, and 10 per cent for higher and upper-middle income groups. The formal induction of housing units per year is 150,000 units. While the unmet demand is taken care of by the creation of informal settlements of two kinds: occupation and subdivision of government land (katchi abadis or squatter settlements) and, second, through the unplanned growth of dwellings on cultivable land on the peripheries of the urban settlements. During the last two decades, however, the demand is increasingly being met by densification of existing low and lower-middle income settlements. Rural-to-urban migration is taking place at an unprecedented level because of non-availability of adequate civic facilities in the villages as well as lack of economic opportunities, compelling people to migrate to big cities to make good fortunes. Right now, there is 8.5 million housing units’ backlog in Pakistan that is growing by 200,000 units every year, which needs to be tackled on an urgent basis. The only solution to this issue, particularly in major cities, is vertical construction, as horizontal growth in the major cities has created lot of problems, including the conversion of agriculture land at the peripheries of urban centres into unplanned shanty dwellings, environmental degradation, traffic congestion and other related civic issues. So, the solution to this appalling problem is vertical construction instead of going horizontal. There was realisation of the issue in the past, and in 2013 the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif had announced Apna Ghar Housing Scheme with a pledge to build 1,000 clusters of 500 housing units each across the country but the project could not be materialised as the requisite funds for the project were not released. Soon after taking over the charge as chief executive of the country, Prime Minister Imran Khan had pledged five million new housing units and initiated work on a few high-rise apartments under the Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme with a focus on facilitating low and middle-income people in all the four provinces, Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. It is in the light of the vision to go vertical instead of horizontal in housing sector that the building by-laws were changed allowing construction of high-rise buildings across the country. Even the Capital Development Authority, the civic body regulating construction in the federal capital has revised policy toward the high-rise buildings. Earlier, the buildings up to 420 feet in height were allowed but now this condition has been waived and recently CDA has given approval to the construction of a 36-storey building in its civic jurisdiction. The high-rise building trends are not only facilitating the large number of people to reside in a priced place on much cheaper costs but are also playing their part in consolidating the environmental footprint of the regions. It averts the requirement of land-use that can otherwise result in the loss of agricultural lands. Furthermore, there can be more space for plantation of crops and trees to keep the vegetation strong. It also helps cope up with the environmental concerns of air pollution, as the dependency on roads is also decreased. Well-planned and sustainable high-rise buildings can maximise the efficiency of land-use as well as optimal facilitation to the end users. The residents of Karachi are quite familiar with the high-rise building lifestyle, but now the people living in other mega cities like Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar are also turning, though hesitantly, to apartments’ living due to extraordinary escalation in the prices of houses in good localities in these cities and towns. Director Empire Holdings Umer Elahi said that most of the apartments they had sold in their Lahore project were either purchased by the overseas Pakistanis or young educated couples. He further said that as the city had expanded horizontally to a great extent, so commuting in traffic rush for long hours was quite troublesome. That is one of the reasons people are turning to apartment living in posh localities. Keeping in view the mounting shortage of houses in the country the only solution left is to go for skyscrapers and high-rise buildings to not only bridge the widening gap between the requirement and availability of housing units but also provide quality living to the people at affordable costs.