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Significant new progress in city-owned land release for social housing

The below is the Council Speech by Cape Town Mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis delivered on Thursday, 28 July 2022

Speaker, City colleagues, Members of the public and guests, Members of the media, Good Morning, Molweni, More, Assalamu alaikum, shalom, I know I speak for us all in congratulating our national team and now African Champions, Banyana Banyana, on their spectacular victory in the Womens' Afcon. I have been in touch with coach Desiree Ellis, a Capetonian from Hanover Park, to convey our congratulations and applause to her and the team for waiving South Africa's flag high across the continent. Yesterday we also marked the 365-day countdown to the Netball World Cup 2023, hosted by us right here in the Mother City. We started the countdown with the unveiling of a beautiful mural in Langa by Langa-born international graffiti artist Skumbuzo Salman, known as "Sku". A warm welcome to the new leader of the opposition in Council, Cllr Banele Majingo, and the new ANC Chief Whip, Cllr Heyns. I want to thank Ald Sotashe and Cllr Makhasi for the role that they played here in the past. As I've said before, I came from the National Assembly where the role of the Official Opposition is not properly respected, so here in Cape Town we understand how important the opposition is in holding us rigorously accountable. I welcome you to the office and wish you well. Speaker, When this government was elected we made a firm commitment: We will release more well-located city-owned land, and faster, to deliver more affordable housing for Capetonians. Since December, we have set about doing so. I will say something about 'how' we are doing this in a minute. But first it is important to remember 'why' we are doing this. We want every person in Cape Town, and those who move here from elsewhere, to know and feel that this is a place where they have a decent chance of building a better life for themselves. That this City offers them a better hope of finding work, a better hope of a future of opportunity for their children, and the optimism that the present painful reality of poverty can be overcome in time. Ultimately, this is the kind of country we want for everyone, everywhere in South Africa. But we can start by trying to build that here, where we are, with what we have. Start somewhere. And yet, we know this is not easy. Poverty in South Africa is growing, not shrinking, as families fall under the crushing pressure of load-shedding, rising prices, and of poor economic policy at a national level. Instead of going forward, families have spent a decade or more in constant financial retreat. We see the signs of this everywhere in our society. In homelessness, in soaring unemployment, and in growing informality. At the heart of addressing the dignity of each family, and of giving people a sense that their life can get better, that the future can be better, is decent affordable housing. So our commitment to more affordable housing in Cape Town is about giving people a pathway out of poverty. It is about showing them a dignified way ahead, and about getting them a sense of security that comes with having a warm, dry, safe place to stay. We want that for many more people. We also want more people to live closer to where they work. In a world of steeply rising fuel prices, rising interest rates, and dysfunctional rail systems, we know that some Capetonians are spending 30% or more of their monthly income on public transport just getting to work. And this isn't unique here. National newspapers last weekend carried the story of a school teacher on the West Rand of Gauteng who has resigned because it makes no financial sense to work when transport costs eat your entire income. So people need to be able to stay closer to work opportunities. But there is something else too. So many people in urban areas across South Africa experienced a profound loss and severing of sense of belonging because of the way that apartheid twisted, mangled and distorted our urban form. That trauma continues to reverberate today. So our commitment to more affordable housing is also about building a more inclusive city that can make progress in unstitching the legacy of apartheid. If that is the powerful 'why' that motivates our action, then 'how' will we do it? We know that fully government subsidised housing programmes in South Africa are undergoing a permanent tapering of budgets and delivery. The future of affordable housing delivery is not going to be in the free housing space, and is not going to be delivered by the state. If we intend to make any meaningful dent on the demand for housing in our cities that we need to, then it will be through unlocking micro-developers, social housing companies, and private sector delivery. In January, I formed a Priority Programme on Affordable Housing. Since then we have been meeting monthly to drive progress in four main areas: 1) We are cutting the red tape that makes it difficult for the private sector to deliver thousands more affordable homes. Council has already considered the first step in the process for a meaningful amendment to the Municipal Planning By-law to achieve this end. 2) We are making it easier for micro-developers to deliver more rental units. We will soon offer planning support officers in townships, with off-the-shelf pre-approved building plans for rental units.3) We are giving people title deeds, and using innovative partnerships with banks and cell phone companies to track down beneficiaries who still need to receive their title deeds. This way we are putting people on the first rung of the asset ownership ladder and breaking the cycle of inter-generational poverty. We are putting life-changing assets in their hands – that they can leave a legacy to their children, or develop micro-rental units to generate income, or just to own and live in a home that is truly theirs, rather than as a permanent tenant of the state. 4) We are speeding up the release of city-owned land for social housing deliveryAlready, in the last three months, two parcels of land, which had inched their way through the system have been shaken loose and brought to Council. But there is much more to come. And so it gives me a great pleasure to announce today that we are tabling two more major projects for social housing. First, we are tabling the final handing over of the important Salt River Market property to the social housing institution for construction. Second, the Pickwick Road site is on our agenda today for final in-principle approval for release for social housing. We are making history today by enabling the nine-storey Salt River Market development right in the heart of the city, at Salt River circle, close to social and economic amenities.The Pickwick Road project also in Salt River is back on Council's agenda today after we first considered it two months ago. This is a bricks and mortar example of how we are shortening land release timeframes, having already completed public participation in just two months.Together these projects unlock over 800 social housing units in Salt River. And with Newmarket Street, we've now brought three properties in three months to Council with over 1 000 social housing units.Our Land Release programme is gaining momentum. Our goal is a more rapid pipeline for social housing and mixed-use private sector development. Officials have pushed to get Salt River Market onto this Council agenda, including running additional public participation to correct the erroneous exclusion of a key erf from earlier stages of the advertisement process in early 2018. Over time, City officials and the relevant SHI have also worked to up the social housing component of this project and land a feasible mixed-use development.Overall, the Salt River Market development comprises 723 affordable units, and 216 social housing units. This will be cross-subsidised by offices, community facilities, and markets set around a vibrant public square. The property is also in close proximity to key public transport interchanges. It is across the road from Salt River Station (where Northern, Central and Southern Lines converge), as well as MyCiti Route 261, which connects Century City to the City Bowl via Voortrekker Road, and Route 102, which connects Salt River Station to the CBD via Woodstock, Walmer Estate and District 6.Pickwick Road in Salt River is set to deliver 600 social housing units as part of an eight-storey mixed-use development. With the latest release of Salt River Market, the City now has over 800 inner city social housing units in the construction phase via social housing partners. The other projects are Maitland (+-200 SH units), and two more in Woodstock, Pine Road (+-240 SH units) and Dillon Lane (+-150 SH units).Projects in the land-use management phase include Newmarket Street (+- 200 units), and Woodstock Hospital precinct, where around 700 social housing units have been delayed by the orchestrated building hi-jackings of March 2017. We will do everything possible to fast-track this social housing through the correct legal channels.Besides doing everything in our power to release the pockets of land that we control, we are pushing forward with our calls for national government to release the huge pieces of unused state land in the city, which are at least 77 times the size of the land the City owns. I have met with the national Minister of Public Works, Minister Patricia de Lille, to get an update on these mega-properties, and I am counting on her to keep up the interest she had in these sites as Mayor, now that she controls them.Speaker, The Eskom load-shedding we have experienced since the last Council meeting has been unprecedented. Stage 6 meant that most South Africans were forced to go without electricity for six hours of the day – compounding the economic hardship that so many already face.Here in Cape Town, thanks to the efficient use of the Steenbras hydroelectric pumped storage plant, City customers were spared up to two levels of load- shedding for most of those dreadful three weeks. I am very proud that we are able to protect our residents in this way.On Monday this week, we announced our pioneering plan to allow commercial (and eventually residential) consumers of electricity to become net producers by selling any surplus electricity they generate back to the City. And instead of simply providing a credit, we will be paying these customers in cash. Of course, the ultimate goal is to eventually stop load-shedding in the city, and these policy shifts were important positive steps on that journey too. Speaker, as economic hardship bites, criminality tends to increase. Since Council last met, we have seen shocking levels of violence across South Africa with dozens killed in mass shootings. We still have much to do in our fight against crime. This is why we are working hard to compensate for SAPS under-resourcing with the LEAP programme, which continues to yield impressive results.I am happy to report that our LEAP Officers made 1 491 arrests in just three months, from April to the end of June this year. These arrests took place in Delft, Mitchells Plain, Gugulethu, Nyanga, Harare, Khayelitsha, Bishop Lavis, Atlantis, Lavender Hill, Grassy Park and Hanover Park, among others. Our officers confiscated dozens of illegal firearms and hundreds of thousands of rands worth of drugs.I'm also proud and grateful for those residents joining and volunteering in neighbourhood watches, refusing to accept the gangsters and criminal behaviour in their communities. I joined several neighbourhood watches last week to patrol in Pelican Park, and this year we've budgeted R5,6 million for training and new equipment for neighbourhood watches across Cape Town. Speaker, a few weeks back we completed the restoration of the murals featuring Madiba and Archbishop Tutu on the façade of the Civic Centre. This small project does not just speak to a sense of renewal in our city, but also is a reminder of the founding values of our democracy. Sadly, there are those who threaten those values daily and who seek deliberately to turn back the progress we have made as a country. I am talking here of those that exploit differences in race, ethnicity and nationality for political purposes. Looking all around the world, one cannot help feel alarmed at the increasingly tribal, polarised and bitter tenor of political engagement. Throughout the ages, the easiest thing to do in politics has always been the tactic of the scoundrel: manufacture an enemy, whip up fear and anger against the perceived threat posed by that enemy, position yourself as the great defender to leverage those fears for support. That may be the easy road, but at the end of it lies only destruction. In Cape Town, we must choose a different path – one of inclusivity, tolerance and community, in a plural society united in our care for our city home. I know that when times are hardest, we are most susceptible to rhetoric that seeks to divide. I am particularly concerned at reports of rising xenophobia in our country and our city. No less than the United Nations recently issued a warning that anti-foreigner sentiment is cause for serious concern in South Africa. All of us – no matter the colour of our skin, the language we speak, the God we worship, or the country we are from – deserve to be treated with dignity, inclusivity and respect. I hope that all parties in this Council will join me in taking a stand today and publicly saying "no" to xenophobia in Cape Town. Speaker,Because of the actions we are taking today, and the many more actions still to come in our Priority Land Release Programme, we are changing Cape Town for the better. In the years ahead, more Capetonians will live close to where they work, more of them will have affordable homes, they will feel safer where they live, they will have better opportunities in a growing economy, and we will have a more integrated city. That is progress to be proud of. Thank you.

2022-07-27T22:00:00Z

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