Building Cape Town together through partnerships, unlocking economic opportunities
30 May 2023
Greater private sector partnerships where the
City, and government, is an enabler of opportunities, co-creating a City of
Hope, and using the economics of property to drive the development of
affordable housing opportunities in well-located areas. This has been a primary
focus of the City’s Human Settlements
Directorate Strategic Indaba that is under way.
The strategic sessions offer a platform for private sector developers, civic and social housing organisations, academia, National Government, and City teams to share experiences and expertise as the City forges ahead with its plans to enable more affordable housing at scale, in well-located areas over the next decades, especially amid the profound expected growth in demand for housing.
The City's Acting Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Alderman James Vos opened the session with a keynote address. He lauded City teams and stakeholders for the work being done in the trying and emotional space that is human settlements. 'This session comes at just the right time amid much movement in our affordable housing and accelerated land release programme. We've just published social housing guidelines that ensure property-by-property, project-by-project, we can deliver more and more affordable housing options by creating a means to apply discounts when we dispose of City-owned land to the private sector thereby unlocking value for combined housing developments through extracting our highest socio-economic worth that equates to housing yield. This will enable Capetonians to live lives of dignity and value, and connected to economic opportunities.'
City-wide 6 500 social housing opportunities in the pipeline
'The City is working to sustain momentum and move more of its properties into the construction phase for social housing. In the first five months of our Mayoral Programme for Accelerated Land Release, five inner-city land parcels with a planned total of over 1 300 housing units reached critical land release milestones. More exciting milestones will be reached in the coming months.
'This session is another platform for us to call on greater involvement by the private sector, including the banking and micro-developer sectors, to work with us to build the City of Hope.
'The reality is that the State is not able to provide enough of a subsidy, land or budget for the development of more affordable housing. This means we must consider out of the box interventions and other levers to enable more affordable housing.
'Together with all partners and City teams, I am ready to delve deeper and make the circle bigger to enable a titanic shift in housing provision in Cape Town going forward. We have to do this, together, as there are few things that have the ability to transform lives in the way that dignified housing can,' said Alderman Vos.
Greater private sector partnerships where the City, and government, is an enabler of opportunities, co-creating a City of Hope
Greater private sector partnerships where the City, and government, is an enabler of opportunities, co-creating a City of Hope
Greater private sector partnerships where the City, and government, is an enabler of opportunities, co-creating a City of Hope
Greater private sector partnerships where the City, and government, is an enabler of opportunities, co-creating a City of Hope
Ready for action
More than 97% of the City's human settlements budget was spent in the last financial year, despite the challenges, including criminality and unlawful occupations, and the ever-diminishing grant funding received from the National Government.
'Council approved the City's Human Settlements Strategy in 2021. We are now in the implementation phase, and this strategic session is another tangible step in our efforts to position the City as an enabler of opportunities, to unlock greater delivery of affordable housing in partnership and at scale.
'We need to constantly evolve and be relevant in an ever-changing environment, including the Russia-Ukraine war, diminished national government housing grants, semigration, the economic downturn, the pressure on middle classes, the diverse population in Cape Town and the great need for national regulatory reform. Big challenges, call for big partnerships. We cannot do it on our own. We need to build Cape Town, together,' said the City's Executive Director for Human Settlements, Nolwandle Gqiba.
To view the City's Human Settlements Strategy visit:
http://bit.ly/CCT-HSStrategy
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
