The City’s Human Settlements Directorate is hard at work with the roll out of big projects across Cape Town in the new financial year. Some R2,8 billion in total has been allocated for human settlements over the next three years. In the last financial year, the Directorate spent more than 97% of its grant funding for human settlements projects and programmes.

‘Grant funding spend is an incredibly important indicator of service delivery and a pro-poor focus as it is earmarked for the most vulnerable communities, for human settlements and basic services. The City spent R808 million of the Urban Settlements Development and Informal Settlements Upgrading Partnership grants. It takes superior project management and good governance and the administrative and political will to ensure that money allocated for services is spent where it has been earmarked. This strong performance also shows that the current housing delivery model is not sufficient to meet the demand for affordable housing as the City spends almost all the grant funding it is allocated, where possible. We need a partnership approach and a deep diversification of housing delivery, one focused on social and affordable housing, site and service and upgrading of basic services. This is what our new Human Settlements Strategy focuses on.

‘There are also some large-budget human settlements projects being rolled out across the metro in this financial year including in Macassar, Durbanville, Kraaifontein, Khayelitsha, Helderberg, Delft, Philippi, Nyanga, Atlantis, the Cape Flats and Hout Bay, central Cape Town among many others. At the heart of successful progress and delivery is support from community members, councillors, project steering committees, contractors, project managers and management across many City departments. We thank all our stakeholders for working with us again in this financial year. As a City, we will also continue to do our best to safeguard our projects from illegal occupation, racketeering and criminality. Conditions are tough on the ground but we are fully committed to changing the lives of our residents in partnership with our communities and partners,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi.

Highlights for 2022/23 include:

• R284,7 million: Public Housing Maintenance

• R818 million: Breaking New Ground, social housing and incremental development projects

• R30 million: Alternative building technology

• R19 million: Backyarder service enhancement

• R370 million: Informal settlements upgrading projects

Source: City Of Cape Town