Affordable housing vision: Great first leg of Woodstock Hospital public participation followed by more engagements
31 January 2025
STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS, COUNCILLOR CARL POPHAIM
We’ve concluded the first leg of the public participation period for intended mixed income and affordable housing development at the Woodstock Hospital site. This phase of engagement involved statutory-required written inputs, which are being collated at the moment.
As the Mayoral Committee Member, I will be driving a further public engagement campaign with the relevant stakeholders including the Woodstock Hospital occupants as well as the broader community groupings from later in February.
We’ve been clear about our intention to garner meaningful, feasible and constructive input on the proposed vision for this site, which includes the development of affordable housing opportunities for qualifying residents. The statutory written phase of the public participation period has been conducted over four months in total, which is a considerable period for input which exceeds the statutory required 30 days.
All feasible options will be assessed in terms of the applicable legislation and Council policy.
I am excited by the prospect of further robust engagement around the City’s affordable housing agenda.
Through our flagship priority land release programme, the City has in the last two years released land parcels offering over 4 000 residential opportunities now available for affordable development and we have a portfolio of approximately 5 000 constructed and completed Social Housing units in well-located areas across the metro.
With some 12 000 opportunities for affordable rental housing opportunities in the pipeline in urban centres across Cape Town, we firmly believe that our plans for this site as a mixed income and affordable housing development will be a game-changer, bringing much-needed affordable housing, and an economic boost to this area.
The total extent of the property, valued at approximately R87 million, including a potential residential development yield of approximately 500 units, comprising open market and social housing, will be disposed of subject to the provision of affordable housing. All due process is being followed.
The engagements with the existing occupants of the Woodstock Hospital site will also continue and the point of departure remains that all policies will be upheld and successful participation in the social housing agenda is dependent on the socio-economic profile of the households. The City is engaging the households on the options available to them to determine the appropriate response for each household in terms of Council policy and legislation.
Affordable housing is a challenging arena in general. It is often characterised by:
1. Rapidly diminishing national government funding for social housing
2. Unlawful occupation, such as is the case with the Woodstock Hospital site, and how to deliver opportunities to qualifying beneficiaries in terms of Council and national legislation
3. Very cumbersome and heavily legislated environment often taking years to bring a project to fruition
4. Community resistance to the roll out of affordable housing projects or the rife ‘not-in-my-backyard’ phenomenon that often sees communities reject these projects outright despite the aesthetically pleasing nature of the developments and the known economic boost it brings to neighbourhoods
5. Diminishing financial health of social housing institutions
6. Lack of private sector, market and gap housing players
7. Competing requirements for land that is well-located
8. Land in and near urban centres in Cape Town especially is very expensive and attracting the right partners to develop it, even with the City’s discounts, is a challenge
Despite all of this, Cape Town has the most progressive and aggressive affordable housing agenda in South Africa. It is objectively seen by many in this realm as a leader in the field and its programmes have gained a lot of traction since work started in earnest in 2016, with the City itself setting Cape Town’s social and affordable housing agenda back then.
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Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
