The City’s Dido Valley housing project in Simon’s Town is progressing well with 33 units already completed and being readied for handover to qualifying beneficiaries. The R170 million project entails the construction of 600 subsidised houses.

‘The first 33 units have been completed and will be handed over as soon as the electrical reticulation is completed, which will be within the next few weeks. Further batches of units are also nearing completion, and will be handed over as and when they reach practical completion.

‘Construction of full A-grade civil engineering services commenced on 30 June 2016 and was completed in December 2017. The top structures contractor appointed by the Redhill PHP group (the non-land claimants) was established on site in August 2020. This project contains a restitution component too and the Luyolo People’s Housing Process group of restitution beneficiaries established on site in September 2022 and we are doing our best to expedite this process so that we can complete all of the 100 Luyolo units for the land claimants during the first half of 2023, if all goes according to plan.

‘This Breaking New Ground (BNG) project comprises State-subsidised houses which will empower beneficiaries as first-time homeowners. Importantly, it also contains a restitution component which will enable the descendants of the original Luyolo community to return to Simon’s Town, from which they were forcefully removed in the 1960s. This project showcases the City’s commitment to building a better future for those who bore the brunt of apartheid policies and also enables well-located, affordable housing in this area. This is an example of redress and restitution in action.

‘Work on site is progressing well and is expected to be completed in late-2023, if all goes according to plan. I give thanks to our communities, City teams and project steering committees for the hard work and dedication to move this complex project forward,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi, who visited the project today, 25 October 2022, along with City officials and other stakeholders.

The majority of the beneficiaries for the BNG component of the project come from the Redhill informal settlement, which is located between Simon’s Town and Scarborough and their allocation is in line with housing allocation policies. The Luyolo land claimant beneficiaries were forcibly removed from Simon’s Town in the mid-1960s under the apartheid Group Areas Act. These beneficiaries were moved to Gugulethu. The project has a combined support organisation representing the two groups of beneficiaries from Redhill and Luyolo respectively.

Source: City Of Cape Town