City of Cape Town to release land for 1 800-unit inner city housing project
26 October 2023
The Cape Town City Council is set to release land for the largest ever social housing development in the inner city. In an address to Council on 26 October, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the City’s Pickwick property will deliver 1 800 units in the inner city suburb of Salt River, including 840 social rental units for families earning under R22 000 per month and on-site amenities including a crèche, playgrounds, clubhouse, and swimming pool. Read the full Council Speech here:
'Today is an important day for the delivery of our pledge of more affordable housing in Cape Town, as Council approves the final release of the Pickwick Road site to a social housing developer.
'With its prime location in Salt River just minutes away from the work opportunities of the CBD, public transport and major access roads, this 3,2 hectare site has everything we are looking for when it comes to land suitable for social housing development.
'It will yield around 1 800 residential opportunities, including 840 social housing units and 960 open market units, as part of a mixed-use development. This is up from the forecasted 600 social housing units, and we are pleased that our newly-adopted land release guidelines are maximising social housing yield, as intended.
'These affordable rentals are an absolute game changer for families with a combined monthly income of less than R22 000, and I am truly excited about this land being turned into beautiful, affordable homes for thousands of Capetonians,' said Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.
Pickwick is the latest land release under our Mayoral Priority Programme, which has now seen various approval and release milestones reached in the past year for more than 2 200 social housing units across seven land parcels, mostly in Cape Town's inner city.
Cllr Carl Pophaim, Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, said the City has over 6 500 social housing units in the pipeline across 50 land parcels city-wide.
'We're about to start tenanting at the 1 000-unit Goodwood Station social housing project, where the City provided development grant funding, land for parking, and various incentives to enable this development.
'This follows the tenanting recently of our 204-unit Maitland Mews social housing development in central Cape Town.
'Besides our own land release programme, we have also helped enable almost 1100 social housing units in the well-located city suburb of Pinelands, for phase one of the Western Cape Government's Conradie Park development, and we are providing very significant financial support at another province precinct, at Founder's Garden in the CBD,' said Cllr Pophaim.
Mayor advocates against cuts to national housing grants, equitable share
Mayor Hill-Lewis further used his address in Council to advocate against the expected nationwide cuts to housing grants in Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana's Medium Term Budget Policy Statement in Parliament next week.
'Both our Urban Settlements Development Grant and our Informal Settlements Upgrading Grant have been earmarked for substantial cuts amounting to more than R100m to be slashed directly from housing and informal settlement budgets servicing our most vulnerable communities. We in Cape Town object in the strongest possible terms to these anti-poor budget cuts.
We also anticipate top slicing of the Equitable Share to provinces and local government in the forthcoming Medium Term Budget Policy Framework.
The census confirms that the Western Cape has rocketed up the population rankings to be the 2nd most populous city – just 100 000 people behind Jo'burg. In fact, Cape Town will soon overtake Jo'burg as South Africa's biggest city, and will very soon cross over the 5 million person mark.
In accordance with these figures, our Equitable Share should be increasing, not decreasing.
If there are to be cuts, as there clearly need to be, these should come from government departments that serve no meaningful purpose – and there are several of those – or from unnecessary expenditure like R3,5 billion for VIP security for Ministers.
Expenditure that is aimed directly at improving the lives of the poor, upgrading services in informal settlements, delivering housing, or building essential infrastructure, should be protected at all costs.
I call on the national government to consider the plight of the people directly affected by these cuts, and to reverse this regressive decision.
I appeal today to both the Finance Minister and the President: You have an imminent opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to building the kind of South Africa that we are trying to build here in Cape Town – progressive, pro-poor and pro-growth.
I understand the financial constraints facing the Minister in this mid-term budget, and that there is no magic money tree for him to harvest. But I also know that the cuts proposed so far are absolutely the wrong decision,' said Mayor Hill-Lewis.
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
