Residents' Perception of Physical Planning Regulations in Three Secondary Cities in Nigeria (A Study of Osogbo, Ile-Ife, and Iwo)

This paper assessed residents' perception of physical planning regulations with a focus on three major cities (Osogbo, Ile-Ife, and Iwo) in Osun State. Resident's perception was determined by level of awareness of physical planning regulations and experience with administrative practices in the enforcement of physical planning regulations in the study area. For data collection, each of the cities was stratified into three developmental zones, with satellite imageries of built-up areas in each city being subjected to Fishnet analysis in a GIS environment. An average of one house was randomly selected from 2 an area of 0.6 km . Thus, 108, 62 and 56 houses were selected in Osogbo, Ife and Iwo respectively and one resident was sampled in each of the selected houses to arrive at the sample size of 226 residents, to whom copies of the questionnaire were administered. Findings revealed that residents were not quite aware of physical planning regulations in each study area and that those with some knowledge of such regulations acquired it in the course of interacting with planning agencies. It was also found that administrative practices on the enforcement of physical planning regulations were not quite effective. Therefore, it is recommended that physical planning agencies should aim for more effectiveness in raising public awareness on physical planning regulations while improving their own administrative practices.