City mulls new draft strategy for human settlements

08 April 2021

The demand for affordable housing in Cape Town and other cities in South Africa is acute. New legal and lawful solutions, innovations and stronger partnerships to help tackle the challenge of accommodation, especially for those earning less than R22 000 per month, are required. The State, or a municipality, simply does not have the financial resources nor the availability of suitable land, to tackle the housing need on its own. Read more below:

The City’s new draft Human Settlements Strategy served before the Human Settlements Portfolio Committee today, 8 April 2021. It underwent a three-month public participation period. It is earmarked to serve before Council later this year for further consideration.

‘The demand for affordable housing will continue to be exacerbated as a result of the dire national economic conditions, which are being made worst by the impact of Covid-19 and the national lockdowns, the current national housing regulatory regime and the fall-out from the large-scale orchestrated unlawful occupations that have happened since the Covid-19 lockdown started,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi.

What affects the one, affects the other

‘The draft strategy underwent three months of public participation. We received some incredible feedback from residents and interested parties in government and the private sector. This is heartening as we have said from the start, Cape Town’s Human Settlements Strategy is for all in Cape Town. It is not for one sector or for government to handle on its own. Housing, across all types, affect all who live in Cape Town. Affordable housing, and incrementally enhancing affordable accommodation and basic services, must become a greater part of the mainstream conversation.

Greater private sector partnerships

‘It is aimed at enabling greater partnership, collaboration, inclusivity and innovation in the human settlements sphere, especially private sector support. This is crucial, as the City on its own cannot solve the challenges of urbanisation, increased informality and a drastic shortage in the housing stock. This strategy is meant to enable more sustainable, integrated and spatially transformed communities. Cape Town has many unique challenges and we must ensure we are able to manoeuvre around the complexities that we face as a city, such as suitable land scarcity and diminishing national grant funding for housing.

Shortfall of formal housing

A shortfall in the development of formal housing opportunities of approximately 30 000 every year within the next decade, assuming the average annual rate of supply by both the private and public sectors remain unchanged.
Between 1996 and 2016, Cape Town’s population increased by 56% to more than 4,3 million residents, and over the same period, there was a 94% increase in the number of households, to around 1,36 million.
To accommodate projected growth as well as to manage the existing housing demand, it is estimated that roughly 500 000 housing opportunities need to be created between now and 2028.
Urbanisation will continue and the associated growth in informality, especially considering the dire national economic conditions in South Africa. This is not a problem that is unique to Cape Town, but it is perhaps exacerbated by the limited suitable land and topography of Cape Town as a Peninsula.
Human settlements delivery is beset with challenges, including R1,3 billion in housing projects under threat from ongoing orchestrated land invasions, national budget cuts, a weak economy and regulatory red tape.
The City’s Human Settlements Directorate spent approximately 98% of its funding in the 2019/20 financial year, despite the substantial impact that Covid-19 had on its operations. This illustrates the City is able to deliver on State projects as earmarked, but the need is pronounced and a new, whole-of-society approach is required.
All suitable City-owned land must continue to be assessed, including suitable land in and near the Cape Town CBD and other urban centres with various uses - from golf courses to mixed use areas - to determine whether some of these properties could be developed for affordable housing opportunities among others.

Unlawful Land Occupation Framework

The draft strategy has been more than two years in the making and much has occurred in these two years, including the immense Covid-19 and lockdown impacts and mass organised unlawful land occupations. The City has also developed a draft Unlawful Land Occupation Framework. The draft Human Settlements Strategy has been amended to include the principles of the framework.

The draft framework primarily deals with short- and longer-term measures to deal with the large number of people who have illegally settled on land, and especially the issue of basic services.

The extreme increase in mostly large-scale, organised unlawful land occupations, often with the involvement of so called ‘shack-farming’ syndicates over the Covid-19 lockdown period and while the national crisis regulations remain in effect, have led to the establishment of new settlements in many parts of the metro such as in Khayelitsha, Kraaifontein and Mfuleni.

These settlements are now demanding immediate services.

The City maintains that it is unable to provide immediate services, if at all, to all newly formed settlements at the expense of the existing services and programmes planned in accordance with its Budget. The City does not have unlimited resources. In its assessments of the areas, the City’s stance is that the land assessment/physical conditions determines what, if any services, can be provided in terms of emergency relief.

The majority of the occupations have happened on land that is not suitable or viable for human habitation, such as in flood-prone wetlands, low-lying areas and even in water retention ponds or on the slopes of loose, sandy nature reserve land that will get eroded by wind and rain. These areas are typically not well resourced in terms of bulk services as the City cannot develop it for housing purposes.

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Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office