2009/01/20

The amount of open space in Johannesburg is dwindling, because of the escalating number of households in the city.

In an effort to maximise the use of the remaining open spaces, the Gauteng department of housing has identified pockets of vacant land for human settlement.

In consultation with the City, the province has earmarked 31 portions of land in the city to build houses, to cut back the housing backlog which stands at about 300,000 in Joburg.

Presenting a R3bn budget for the 2008-09 financial year, the MEC for housing, Nomvula Mokonyane, said her department would also go ahead with its Inclusionary Housing Policy, a means to promote deracialisation of exclusive suburbs and create inclusive communities irrespective of income, race and profession.

Mokonyane said five pilot inclusionary housing projects, initiated by the Department of Housing on government-owned land, have been targeted for Gauteng, with 95 units planned for Johannesburg's northern suburb of Lonehill.

"It is my view that the opulent Parkhurst capitalist must get used to staying next door to Ms Mabuza, the housekeeper. Why do you need a helper in your opulent estate's kitchen and garden during daytime yet you cannot stand the idea of sharing the same residential space and all the amenities with him/her. The inclusionary policy is attempting, among other things, to redress such anomalies."

Mokonyane said her department made a commitment to deliver 58,552 housing units during the 2007-08 financial year and by the end of March 2008, 63,484 had been built, surpassing the initial target.

Mixed housing

In moving towards the 2014 vision to eradicate all registered informal settlements and provide sustainable housing for the homeless, Mokonyane said several programmes comprising mixed-housing developments, eradication of informal settlements, alternative tenure, urban renewal programmes and the 20 prioritised townships programme would continue.

Under the mixed-housing development programme, she said work would continue in Cosmo City, where 14,800 units would be delivered, and the K206 project in Alexandra, which was to yield 3,199 units.

By 2014, the province hopes to have implemented 14 of these projects, resulting in 150,000 different housing units being delivered over a five-year period.

A large portion of the R3bn budget will go towards upgrading 122 informal settlements by 2009. To date, 68 informal settlements have been formalised, resulting in 325,000 people having access to water and sanitation.

In most cases, informal settlements whose residents had been relocated elsewhere had been re-occupied, leading to their re-emergence. This had been exacerbated by the unregulated mushrooming of informal settlements and shack farming, which is when a person erects a shack in their yard to rent out, said Mokonyane. To counter this, a bill was being drafted that would help to prevent the re-emergence of slums and informal settlements.

"The bill provides for capacity within the municipalities to ensure that slums and informal settlements do not re-emerge once they've been cleared," she said.

In addition, the alternative tenure programme will provide alternative accommodation options, like rental housing.

Available land

A key challenge had been finding well-located land within Alexandra and surrounding areas, Mokonyane said. However, the department had managed to identify well-located land that was suitable for mixed-income groups, mixed use and alternative tenure options.

"Acquisition of different pockets of land has commenced and this gives us an opportunity to realise our objectives of de-densifying Alex without displacing communities from areas of economic opportunities as well as interfering with the historical social design."

Foreigners living in areas like Alex were attacked recently, and blamed for occupying RDP houses meant for locals. Mokonyane said the department was guided by policy when allocating houses to beneficiaries.

"We are quite aware that the issue of allocating houses to beneficiaries is a complex and sensitive one. In all our housing developments we ensure that only those people who, according to prescribed legislation and the National Housing Code qualify to get houses, are being allocated."

To ensure that all prospective beneficiaries were recorded, the department had launched Project Ziveze, a demand database system, to help it allocate houses to rightful owners.

"This project will help ensure efficient and fast-tracked housing delivery in Gauteng," Mokonyane said. - Ndaba Dlamini

Article and photograph/s courtesy of City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za).