Green Housing Technical Adviser
Green Housing Technical Adviser
To carry out internal project evaluation, propriety designs, and advisory working tools, develop and standardize the reporting template for TCDD, engage with and review reports of independent technical supporters, evaluate building designs, recommend green technologies, ensure compliance with environmental regulations, and advise on energy efficiency improvements.
Background
Nigeria currently has an estimated population of 220 million, with a 3.5% annual growth rate. United Nations estimates that by 2050, Nigeria’s population will reach 400 million while 189 million urban dwellers will be added to the nation, translating into an annual housing requirement, over the coming decades, of at least 900,000 units to keep up with growing housing demand and urban migration. Based on current forecast construction, Nigeria’s overall accumulated housing deficit is about 28 million units, as of 2023. The estimated cost to bridge the housing gap is about NGN21 trillion. Therefore, appropriately structured financing mechanisms are therefore required to make home financing more affordable and accessible to homebuyers, at a greater scale, providing access to housing but also solving the challenge of offtake for property developers.
Despite the housing deficit which creates a significant opportunity for developer financing in Nigeria, the market is constrained by offtake risk inherent in housing infrastructure projects occasioned by an absence of an effective mortgage solution that provides prospective homebuyers access to affordable home loan products. This situation has continued to weaken developers’ ability to access sustainable funding and scale their construction activities.
As part of its market development initiatives, InfraCredit developed its Green Housing Funding Programme (the “Programme”) working alongside private sector intermediaries, market stakeholders, and development partners. The Programme seeks to address the funding constraints faced by developers resulting from the lack of an institutional mechanism to provide homebuyers with access to affordable funding required to make both home financing and the final sale predictable and scalable. The Programme is being implemented in collaboration with development including KFW Development Bank (KFW) and Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) through technical assistance grant support.
Under the Green Housing Funding Programme, InfraCredit has established a strategy for developing climate-smart and resilient infrastructure, which will include developing resource-efficient and low-carbon housing infrastructure. InfraCredit is currently implementing the supply-side component of the Programme by prequalifying eligible developers that will benefit from its guarantees to access local currency funding from the debt capital markets to finance the construction of eligible green- edge-certifiable housing projects. Under the Programme, InfraCredit is developing an initial pipeline of green housing developers that will benefit from technical assistance support and transaction structuring towards a local currency bond issuance while incorporating E&S best practices and where applicable, EDGE Certification.
One of the key constraints that the Programme seeks to address is the fragmentation of housing demand and supply-side activities by ensuring that the demand and supply-side intervention happen concurrently and in a complementary manner. On the supply side, eligible developers will access sustainable construction funding from the debt capital markets on the back of InfraCredit’s guarantees thereby creating a strong pipeline of completed housing projects. On the demand side, the collaboration with the Housing Solutions Fund will identify, evaluate and prequalify prospective homebuyers to benefit from its affordable home loans in partnership with participating lending institutions towards the purchase of homes. This, therefore, creates an integrated and coordinated structure for addressing the housing market problem.
InfraCredit has originated a cumulative pipeline of 21 EDGE-certifiable housing infrastructure projects within the affordable and mid-market sub-categories amounting to NGN122 billion, to develop c.4,000 energy efficient homes over the next 36 to 60 months horizon, housing c. 20,000 people and businesses.
To support its deal execution capacity to bring these projects to financial close within the key performance milestones agreed with its co-funding and development partners, InfraCredit supported by technical assistance from KFW is seeking to contract specialised consultants to work alongside the Green Housing deal team to execute NGN50 – NGN100 billion annually in green housing projects to enhance access for low-mid income residential and commercial buildings, within environmentally sustainable communities
In accessing the developers and respective projects, alongside financial, legal, environmental and social (E&S) due diligence, the results of robust technical and commercial due diligence (TCDD) are required for obtaining relevant credit approvals.
The TCDD is facilitated by the prequalification and engagement of an external consultant (corporate) comprising a team of housing projects professionals whose expertise and technical know-how shall in detail, investigate, identify, assess, audit, validate and provide recommendations on the viability of the project and adherence to property development standards or benchmarks. The interactions of the consulting team span various construction stages and personnel including but not limited to environmental, geotechnical, land and topographical survey, civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, architectural, urban design, quantity surveyors, building contractors, real estate agents, property and facility management and project management.
The independent assessment and recommendations completed by the due diligence consultant are reported to InfraCredit for review and alignment with its housing programme criteria. To ensure seamless collaboration and implementation of the TCDD, InfraCredit requires the services of an in-house Technical Adviser to manage the interactions between the Client (developer) and the Consultant. The adviser is to work closely with the transaction team (Transactor, Transaction-legal and Transaction E&S) and drive the technical elements of the housing deals from the point of origination through Consultant engagements and TCDD desktop and site reviews, to monitoring of projects after financial close.
Job Responsibilities
The Adviser will be required to carry out the following activities:
- Internal project evaluation including but not limited to:
- Assessing the expertise and technical capacity of the Client’s technical team
- Evaluation of the project cost and associated documentation e.g., Bill of quantities (BOQ), program of works (POW)
- Valuation of land, housing stock (as-is value and estimated value at completion)
- Validating client-projected completion timelines
- Determining the suitability of construction methodology and advising optimal approach
- Validation of zoning and land-use applicable to subject projects
- Review and validate project economics, highlighting the risks & recovery plans and develop a summary report.
- Propriety designs and advisory working tools including but not limited to:
- Project viability tool especially for assessing the adequacy of project
- land for stipulated housing stick and heights, land bank for
- Location accessibility assessment tool
- Affordability determination tool
- Develop and standardize the reporting template for TCDD for new and existing consultants.
- Engage with and review reports of independent technical supporters (Valuers, Surveyors etc.) including but not limited to:
- Value Engineering Report
- Designers Risks Assessment
- Quality management System (QMS)
- Concept Report
- Fire Strategy report/ Drawings
- Project management Plan and as-built drawings
- Advise on the standardization of an automated developers’ profiling system
- Evaluate building designs, recommending green technologies, ensuring compliance with environmental regulations, and advising on energy efficiency improvements
- Review new and existing TCDD reports from consultants on housing transactions and where applicable, identify areas for further assessment
- Support the operationalization of InfraCredit’s Green Housing Funding Strategy
- Develop training materials and arrange for or provide training directly on specific capacity needs of InfraCredit partners related to infrastructure investment
- Support the preparation of knowledge products e.g. tool kits, development impact stories, reports and training programme for InfraCredit’s infrastructure Knowledge Exchange Programme to support industry capacity for the building of resilient and sustainable infrastructure.
- Any other responsibilities as may be assigned from time to time during the engagement period
The workstream is expected to deliver the outcomes outlined below:
- The precision of results of project evaluation
- Efficient technical decisions are inferred from the precise project evaluation.
- Efficient prequalification of developers with minimized moving technical parts
- Standardized templates feed into the overall transaction turnaround time (TAT).
- Report that recommends efficient approaches to achieve an industry-wide standardization of the property development processes that will help accelerate housing offtake
Qualification Requirement
- Bachelor’s degree in Quantity Surveying, Architecture, Building Technology, Technical Project Management, Civil Engineering, Construction Engineering, Real Estate Development and Management or a closely related field.
- Between eight to ten years of construction management, sub-contractor management, technical project management.
- Relevant certification such as EDGE Expert and Project Management Professional (PMP) will be an added advantage
- Sound understanding of EDGE standards for housing or similar green building standards.
- Good grasp of the issues and constraints faced by the housing market participants in Nigeria.
- Proven analytical skills and systematic problem solving, as well as excellent communication and writing skills.
- Ability to effectively manage competing deadlines for projects in a high-pressure work environment, with varying degrees of supervision.
- Strong project management skills and demonstrated commitment to professional and client service excellence.
- Acute attention to detail and a dedication to providing high-quality work products.
- Proficiency in the use of all Microsoft Office applications, particularly MS. Excel and MS. Project.