E. Appendix: 2011 Republic of Nauru Census Graphs

■ The 2011 Census is surprisingly helpful for any housing initiative. You can see that the market is overwhelmingly for homeownership and not rentals, and for single family residences and not multi-family. High rates of ownership are at least partly attributable to policies that subsidized the cost of houses like the Welcome Homes from the late 1980’s. This was a policy that encouraged home ownership.

■ Multi-family units and rentals would likely move in concert with one another. Whitfield cites a strong Nauru tradition of single family houses and a wish to live with nuclear families rather than extended families. We are interested in knowing if these preferences still hold true. In the programming and master planning phases, we may look at some forms of common walls, like rowhouses or duplexes, that could be consistent with home ownership, but afford some economies in construction costs.

■ Any new housing program will affect the ratio of home ownership to rentals. To the degree that costs are kept down home ownership will be bolstered. Likely the subsidies possible 30 years ago will be harder to offer now. Financing and down payments will also affect affordability and ownership rates.

■ Durable construction costs more up front, but has lower maintenance costs and is worth more as an asset after twenty of thirty years. There are natural disincentives to incurring these upfront costs that provide greater durability- competitive disadvantages and a wish to increase home ownership, for example. Ideally there would be offsetting incentives to encourage better construction for all houses.

■ Housing is relatively old, and this is likely owing to the periods in which government housing was common. We understand that these initiatives tapered off in the early 1990’s, but that a lot of housing programs dated from after World War II. We are interested in knowing more about how these different housing programs have performed over time. Whitfield cites considerable criticism about the Welcome Homes from the late 1980’s. The economist, Bob Carstairs, who co-authored Whitfield’s 1994 report also said that the Welcome Houses were a good test of the relative economies of prefabricated housing. They were apparently heavily subsidized. The good thing about the age of the housing, which is ten years older now, is that the HGI housing would be replacing depreciated housing.

■ This information will be more helpful in the next programming phase. Whitfield goes into some detail about the size of the houses built after World War II, and this information put the Smart House in good perspective. The four bedroom version of the Smart House is right in the middle of the range of the sizes of the Welcome Houses, which ranged from 111-121 square meters. Post war housing varied greatly from about 67 square meters to 160 square meters. The larger houses had as many as four or five bedrooms. Since the rest of the program varies within a narrow range, it will be the bedrooms that account for most differences. And it sounds as though the Smart House will accommodate 4 bedrooms in less area than the post war housing. There was no information on bedroom count for the comparably sized Welcome Homes.

■ Approximately half the houses on Nauru have concrete block walls and the other half is split between wood and metal. Whitfield seems to think there was a preference for block in the 1990’s. Wall materials and their prevalence are probably a function of the housing programs that stopped about thirty years ago. Whitfield suggests that the Welcome Houses were metal frame but that likely accounts for only a small percentage of the metal frames. We address the advantages of wood and block but not metal.

■ We would be interested in knowing the advantages that made metal relatively common on Nauru. Whitfield and Carstairs seemed skeptical of the housing that used metal, but that was as much for the sandwich wall panels as anything. We would also be interested in understanding what systems have been most common and most successful since Whitfield’s report. The Smart House uses both framed walls and block walls.

■ Asbestos and metal roofs predominated in 2011, so it looks as though metal roofs will be the most common roof material on new houses. Metal roof have lingering reputation for economy but roofs divide into aluminum and ferrous, and into lapped or standing seam. Galvanized roofs with ferrous cores are less expensive but will perform badly in salt environments. Raised seams roofs with hidden fasteners are more expensive than crimped and lapped roof with exposed screw heads. But the screw heads produce a nice pattern when installed correctly and a lapped aluminum roof is probably a good hedge on cost and durability. Screws and their seatings need to be carefully specified. Substrates are addressed in the text.