R1 million maintenance upgrades to Langa Community Residential Units nears completion

25 June 2020

The City of Cape Town’s renovations to the value of more than R1 million to the Old Block flats in Langa is nearing completion. This is part of the City’s commitment to improve the lives of residents: It holds a special significance for the City whenever upgrades to these erstwhile migrant labour and apartheid-era hostels are completed successfully. Building renovations, including replacing old roofing, fascia boards and gutters are being done. The flats undergo regular maintenance.

The upgrades to the four Community Residential Units blocks comprising 432 units in Washington Avenue Langa include roofing, the installation of new fascia and barge boards, new gutters, stone guards, new ceilings as well as glazing of the stairwells. This upgrading project started earlier in June 2020.

The blocks of flats were constructed in 1944 and it has received regular upgrades and maintenance. Under the migrant labour dispensation and then the apartheid regime the hostels in Langa and other areas in Cape Town and South Africa were built for black African men who were employed as labourers for various companies within the larger cities of South Africa. During this period it was a prerequisite of employment for companies to provide hostel accommodation for their labourers. This system not only impacted on the health, safety and socio-economic and customary circumstances of workers but had a huge impact on their family life.

‘The City has been working to change this terrible legacy which has had a severe multi-generational impact by prioritising maintenance and also focusing on its hostel transformation programme. In 2010 a survey was done to identify the status of all of the hostel bed spaces within the city. Based on this survey, the hostels were ranked in terms of the severity of the condition.

‘More than R250 million has been spent on the transformation programme thus far and 463 new apartments have been built. The next phase of the programme, of which engagements are under way, will see the construction of an estimated 660 new apartments on the Special Quarters and New Flats sites in Langa at a cost of some R320 million,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi. He visited the project today.

 All City-owned CRUs undergo regular upgrades and maintenance. The City’s Human Settlement Directorate plans to complete more upgrades and maintenance on City rental units across the metro over the weeks and months ahead.

‘Over the coming months, more upgrades and maintenance will take place in Elsies River and Ravensmead among others. Further City projects will be announced to members of the public in due course. It is a great pleasure to see that City staff and contractors completed the project ahead of schedule and in time for the harsher winter months,’ said Councillor Booi.

The City is dependent on rental money to help carry maintenance costs and it encourages all tenants to please pay what they can to help improve living conditions.

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Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office