Cape Town - Angry social housing activists and groups from informal settlements are planning a protest march to the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) because they have not been invited to the City’s Affordable Housing Indaba today.
The City is also expected to launch its Land Release Programme for More Affordable Housing. Residents from more than 25 communities across the city are expected to demonstrate outside the CTICC.
The indaba will bring together private developers, affordable housing financiers, inter-governmental partners, as well as social housing institutions and other key role-players in the residential development industry to unlock opportunities on well-located land that will be released by the City.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the outcomes of the indaba would inform the City’s accelerated affordable housing programme.
He said the City had more than 6 500 social housing units in 50 land parcels. He said this included 2 000 social housing units in the central city area.
Guests are starting to arrive at the Affordable Housing Indaba @official_cticc This is an inclusive Indaba that will include all stakeholders #LetsBuildCTTogether @CityofCT @Our_DA pic.twitter.com/AvJyQ4ruuv
— Malusi Booi (@MalusiBooi) April 8, 2022
However, housing activist groups said Hill-Lewis made no effort to reach out to them and had failed to respond to their requests.
They raised concerns over the privatisation of public land that did not benefit the people who needed it most, and the City’s provision of housing and its policies.
The groups raised questions about the time-frames, location, housing types and housing affordability to come out of the land release programme.
They demanded that houses built on the released land be reflective of what poor people earned. They want the City to review public participation processes and its principles on land and housing.
Reclaim the City leader at Cissie Gool House, Bevil Lucas, said it was ironic how the City was prepared to host the indaba on social housing with no participation by the beneficiaries of such housing programmes.
Lucas said prior to Hill-Lewis’s appointment as mayor, he promised to adopt an open-door approach to civil society.
“However, the exclusion of civil society by the political party which leads in the city, still continues. This is not just about the indaba, but how the mayor from the DA fails to engage with civil society around land and housing which is regarded as a crisis within the city,” he said.
Lucas said civil society had created a platform and the government should respond to the aspirations of those who were disenfranchised, as well as those who had not been adequately accommodated in the new political dispensation.
“There is an expectation, duty and obligation on the State to engage with civil society and communities regarding the spatial planning crisis which not only speaks to the racial question but also economic question,” Lucas said.
[LIVE] Social movements & communities fighting for access to land & housing are outside the @CityofCT’s #AffordableHousingInbaba at the @CTICC_Official 2, protesting their exclusion from an indaba about their access to land. pic.twitter.com/jrI9HxIYh5
— Ndifuna Ukwazi (@NdifunaUkwazi) April 8, 2022
In Sea Point and in Green Point, in this post-apartheid society, there is not even a single site that has been identified and delivered for social housing for commercial service workers such as security workers, retail workers, hospitality workers and domestic workers. That is an indictment on the existing administration of the City, he said.
“Initially the DA claimed that there was no space for social housing, yet as a result of pressure and campaigning they were later able to identify 11 such sites. The big question now is what has happened? What is the delivery roadmap for housing on those 11 sites,” he asked.
Singabalapha chairperson Barbara Vuza said unless there was a radical change in the political approach, there would not be ways to address the crisis, which had been compounded by the application of apartheid policies by the DA.
“How can you have a debate and engagement around housing when the people who should be better able to contribute to the engagement of what and where housing should be delivered within the city are not there?” she asked.
Vuza said they could not continue to allow the City to treat the displaced as criminals instead of being collaborators in response to the crisis.
The City was approached for further comment but had not responded by deadline.
While the people for whom affordable housing is supposed to be built have been excluded & protest outside, private developers are inside waiting to be addressed by @CityofCT, @WesternCapeGov & @The_DHS. #AffordableHousingIndaba #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs pic.twitter.com/P3C6scy0ya
— Ndifuna Ukwazi (@NdifunaUkwazi) April 8, 2022