Woodstock Hospital: City calls on all roleplayers to support fair and legal allocation of social housing opportunities
09 February 2021
Statement by the City's Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi
The City of Cape Town notes a media release by the organisation Ndifuna Ukwazi attempting to justify their coordinated unlawful occupation of Woodstock Hospital since March 2017, which has become one of the biggest obstacles to social housing at this well-located site in the central Cape Town area. The City is following the correct legal route to drive inclusive social housing development at Woodstock Hospital and calls on all roleplayers to support the process.
We call on all roleplayers not to obstruct the fair and legal allocation of housing opportunities in line with our country’s Constitution and the national legislation governing human settlements.
The City is able to proceed with development planning submissions for social housing for Woodstock Hospital within a short timeframe due to favourable zoning and rights on the property, subject to any heritage requirements.
It is hoped that the current illegal occupants that took occupation under Ndifuna Ukwazi’s Reclaim The City’s (RTC) coordinated unlawful occupation campaign, will move from the property voluntarily because social housing development is not possible unless all illegal occupants vacate the site. If needs be, the City will pursue eviction proceedings subject to lockdown regulations and all due process will be followed.
Following the announcement of social housing plans for well-located sites in central Cape Town, Ndifuna Ukwazi’s RTC’s coordinated a campaign to drive illegal occupations of these properties in March 2017, including calls on social media for people to gather in numbers and resist police efforts to stop the unlawful occupation efforts.
This was followed by calls to “sustain and build” the occupation in line with the RTC Constitution, which includes an explicit intent to invade property and a clear objective to “support the expropriation of property, which aligns with the vision, objectives, principles, and values of Reclaim the City”.
In October 2018, the High Court granted an order interdicting and restraining RTC from “inciting persons to enter or be upon the property for the purpose of unlawfully occupying or invading”.
In contempt of this order, the number of unlawful occupiers has increased substantially, along with reports of criminality, rent extortion rackets, violence and mob activity to the detriment of the surrounding community.
Ongoing misinformation around well-located social housing projects
We note the continued misinformation by Ndifuna Ukwazi and related individuals regarding the status of social housing projects in the central Cape Town area.
These projects have not been cancelled as falsely claimed, with the City currently driving several well-located projects in Woodstock set for major milestones this year, with a projected total of around 620 social housing units. Pine Road is due to break ground, Dillon Lane is at development application stage, and Salt River Market is now just months away from handover to a social housing developer.
The Newmarket Street site (444 units projected yield) is also in the pipeline for social housing, with a short-term lease on the property contributing to upkeep and security in the interim.
The City is currently driving over 2 000 affordable housing opportunities in total currently in the construction phase in and near urban centres across the metro.
The City and the WCG are also together driving the innovative Conradie Better Living Model (BLM) development (3 600 units total) in Pinelands, an inner city feeder suburb. Similar collaboration has succeeded in Belhar CBD (4 000 units total) where an affordable community context is being created around key education institutions.
In District Six, the City is hosting extensive engagements with residents on a Local Spatial Development Framework, and the WCG has already built the District Six CDC healthcare facility, anticipating the return of thousands of beneficiaries to the CBD via the National Government-led restitution process.
It is also important to note: Human settlements delivery is beset with challenges, including R1,3 billion in City housing projects under threat from ongoing orchestrated land invasions, National Government budget cuts reducing the City’s Urban Settlements Development Grant (USDG) by R118 million just for human settlements, a weak national economy and regulatory red tape.
The City’s Human Settlements Directorate spent 98% of its USDG capital budget in the 2019/20 financial year despite the greatly negative COVID-19 and lockdown regulations’ impact on its programmes and 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 to address the profound urban migration that we’ve seen over the past decades in Cape Town, South Africa and indeed in the rest of the world as urban populations expand.
Social housing developments are intricate and complex projects and the City is committed to more affordable housing opportunities on suitable and well-located land across the metro through partnerships and innovation.
But social housing could be derailed at Woodstock Hospital, along with the 700 projected units, if the Ndifuna Ukwazi-enabled occupants refuse to vacate and the necessary high court orders are not granted.
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
