Cape Town - The City of Cape Town has allegedly reneged on its commitment for social housing on a 8 478m2 piece of land in Woodstock in favour of a three-year lease agreement with a private developer in what they call a “financially sound” decision.
This has led civil rights organisation Ndifuna Ukwazi and Woodstock residents to call upon the City to “do what they had originally promised the people”.
Andrea Couvert, of the Woodstock Residents’ Association, said he and other residents were against the city leasing out the land for financial gain.
“They must do what they set out to do with the land from the onset. The land is for social housing and it is not fair now that people have to be put on the backseat while the City makes money off the land,” he said.
Woodstock resident, Ayesha Abrahams, echoed Couvert’s sentiments and said: “The land is for people. People need homes and to now have the land used as a parking lot is just a disgrace on the City’s part. People are desperate for places to stay,” she said.
The current Western Cape housing backlog is at an estimated 600 000, of which 365 000 are in the City of Cape Town alone.
Earlier this week, Ndifuna Ukwazi released a statement calling on the City to halt the lease of the parking lot to Growthpoint Properties and instead carry on with the planned social houses which were said would accommodate 300 families. The City advertised that the land would be leased on a three-year renewable lease, going back on their announcement to have 11 City-owned patches of land released for low-cost housing.
Ndifuna Ukwazi said only one of the 11 parcels of land have been developed thus far.
“Since the announcement of these 11 sites over 3 and a half years ago, only the Pickwick Transitional Housing development has been completed,” the organisation said.
“It is unacceptable that this prime public land will not be used for affordable housing for the next three years. The City’s failure to urgently prioritise the development of affordable housing brings into question the City’s commitment to spatial transformation and its ability to efficiently deliver its own promises to develop affordable housing in well-located areas,” added the statement.
City of Cape Town Mayco member for human settlements Malusi Booi confirmed that though the planned project was still underway, the property was to be leased for financial purposes while the land undergoes rezoning.
“The Newmarket Street site is in the project pipeline. The rezoning and land release processes are under way, subject to all due process and legislative requirements,” he said.
Booi added that there were currently 2 000 affordable housing opportunities already in the construction phase in and near urban centres across the metro, including in the CBD.
Last week, Ndifuna Ukwazi and other civil society organisations also submitted a joint proposal to the presidency to urgently have three underused pieces of military land released for the development of low cost housing. The three pieces of land are Youngsfield, Wingfield and Ysterplaat, according to the proposal, if these patches of land are released, 67 000 housing opportunities will be yielded. Each of these patches of land are within a 10km radius of the Cape Town CBD.
Weekend Argus