Statement by the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Malusi Booi

This is a response to a misleading statement issued by Mr Brett Herron on the City of Cape Town’s housing delivery.

The City’s Human Settlements Directorate spends almost all of the grant funding received for the delivery of housing opportunities

It can only spend what it is allocated by the national government. The funding it gets, is spent

Increasingly, due to the financial and economic problems in South Africa and the impact on the national public purse, grant funding is decreasing, as Mr Herron would know, but building costs per unit or site are increasing. So if one does the math, one can only build houses and construct sites with the money received as housing delivery is 100% grant funded. We do not get other money for housing from the national or provincial governments

If one looks at the City’s Human Settlements Directorate’s average grant spend of 95%, any reasonable person would see that this Directorate is very far from a ‘collapse’

Since the 2011/12 financial year, almost 47 000 opportunities have been created

The housing need in Cape Town cannot be met by the metro alone. All stakeholders must come together and there is no time for misleading, unconstructive political point-scoring

The housing delivery performance in Cape Town has little to do with the City’s erstwhile Transport and Development Authority (TDA) which was then led by Mr Herron. The biggest direct impact on housing delivery is the economy, the diminishing grants and rising building costs.

Mr Herron states that the delivery achieved while he was the political head of TDA is extraordinary. This is not correct.

While he was in this role, there was historic provincial grant funding spent by the City spanning portions of some R500 million which of course boosted numbers somewhat. So to claim that there was a ‘near doubling’ of delivery under him is wrong and mischievous. Less than R38 million of this additional funding remains. Much of it was spent during his political term.

In addition, housing projects mostly stretch over medium terms, such as three years. So projects are usually in different stages planning, execution, delivery of a political term. Sometimes one would get a huge project delivery in a financial year basically because of the timing and perhaps the nature of a particular project, for instance one of a large scale.

Mr Herron states that there is a ‘collapse’ of housing delivery between 2018 and 2019 as ‘only 5 827’ opportunities were delivered. This is wrong. The total housing opportunities delivered in 2018/19 was 7 275.

Housing opportunity targets for 2019/20 are:

Total sites: 3 070 We are confident that we will achieve this target.

Top structures: 3 305 We are confident that we will achieve this target. By end of December 2019, halfway through our financial year, we delivered 1 692 top structures Projects currently under construction or imminent construction

Atlantis Kanonkop

Belhar Pentech

Delft The Hague

Greenville Fisantekraal

Gugulethu

Harare Infill Khayelitsha

Imizamo Yethu Hout Bay

Macassar Strand

Maroela Kraaifontein

Somerset West

Morkels Cottage Strand

Valhalla Park

Various Peoples Housing Projects

Freezia Park

Kalkfontein

Social housing projects

Glenhaven Bellville South

Goodwood Station

Heideveld Station

Weltevreden Valley

We acknowledge that there is much work to do and where we need to make improvements, we are doing so. The human settlements environment is dynamic and full of challenges and we are moving towards a revised strategy which will be robustly engaged on later this year. At the end of the day, human settlements must become part of the mainstream conversation and partnerships remain key to tackling the challenges brought by urbanisation.

Source: City Of Cape Town