Facilitation of decent housing remains one of the greatest urban challenges

{writer: Leon Alberts}

In October, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale announced a strategy to combat the hijacking of buildings in Johannesburg and Cape Town, with the metro council launching a campaign to give basic services to some 41 000 families living in other people’s backyards.

The country and particularly local authorities are battling to come to grips with the pressures on housing stock from rampant urbanisation.

According to reports, Minister Sexwale has declared war on building hijackers.

He was planning to address the Hawks and the National Police Commissioner General Bheki Cele about how to deal with the issue.

Speaking at the relaunch of Cavendish Chambers – a previously hijacked building in the centre of Johannesburg, which was reclaimed, restored and converted from an office building into residential apartments – Sexwale said: “Johannesburg is being reclaimed inch by inch, street by street, block by block, and level by level; and a non-racial South Africa is being built.”

The refurbishment of the building, which was originally built in 1950 as an office block, was done by the Affordable Housing Company (Afhco), with financial assistance from the National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC).

According to Sewale, the backlog in housing in the country is reflected in 2 700 informal settlements in the country.

Statistics from other sources indicate that the urbanisation process is taking place at a much faster rate in South Africa than almost anywhere else in the world. At this stage, an estimated 56% of the country’s 50 million people are living in cities and towns.

The urban population in cities is growing at a rate of 3% per annum, with growth in smaller towns even faster.

Cape Town’s backyarders

While Cape Town has been battling to come to grips with the illegal and dangerous occupation of land in the Hout Bay area, with some structures going up on firebreaks and protests turning violent, the so-called backyarders will not be receiving special attention.

Shehaam Sims, Mayoral Committee member for Housing, announced that in January next year, three pilot areas have been identified in which a plan will be implemented to meet the basic needs of the families who live in the backyards of rented council property.

Sims said the scale of the backyarder phenomenon, which in most instances serves as a source of income for the principal occupants of the property, had been underestimated in the past.

Action was required to ensure that basic services, in terms of the Constitution, were provided.

According to a sample survey carried out by the City’s housing directorate, about 41 000 families live in the backyards of council properties.

The survey further found that backyard families on average comprise of four people – meaning that at least 164 000 people live in the mostly makeshift single-room structures in other people’s backyards.

The levels of poverty involved are illustrated by the fact that the survey found that more than 90% of these households have to survive on an income of R3 000 or less per month.

Sims said it was found that solutions had to be tailor-made for the needs of each area involved, and should be phased in.

Short-term proposals focus on access to basic services such as water, sanitation, electricity and refuse removal.

Looking ahead to the medium- to longer term, issues of a legal, policy, regulatory, health, and management nature come into play.

“Key suggestions include [providing] a wheelie bin [and] black bag… as well as the establishment of area committees in the pilot areas to update communities on progress,” Sims said.

Complicated court case

In Johannesburg, Sexwale’s war on building hijackers may run into some legal problems unless preventative action can be taken.

A few months ago, the City of Johannesburg had a court judgment made against it, instructing the City to follow the provisions of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction From and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act, which rules that one cannot evict people until alternative accommodation has been found for them.

The minister said he is aware of the judgment and that “the law is a good law, but it is not meant for [building] hijackers.

“So we want to work with the police and make sure people are evicted from those buildings that are hijacked.”

He added that it was important for judges to sometimes conduct inspections before making a judgment, but stressed that his department was behind the courts and required writs from courts to prevent exploitation by landlords.

By reclaiming hijacked buildings, reinvestment could take place in old buildings to restore them and reinvigorate the city, Sexwale said.

Samson Moraba, chief executive officer of the NHFC, said its relationship with Afhco goes back to 1988 when banks were “red-lining” parts of the city where they would not do any funding.

Afhco had about 80 buildings in the Johannesburg area, and the NHFC had funded 10 of them via investments of about R150 million in their restoration and conversion.

Moraba said some inner-city buildings in other major cities such as Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London were becoming derelict and could be reclaimed through efforts such as the revamp of Cavendish Chambers.

Problems long in the making

Even the previous National Party government in the mid-1980s, when apartheid was still officially in place, made peace with the reality of rapid, unavoidable urbanisation. The President’s Council (PC) at the time was tasked to work on an urbanisation strategy for South Africa.

The PC’s report found that the process of urbanisation was inevitable, and even in some respects desirable as a developmental tool, which among others tends to lead to smaller families.

While it was unlikely that the process could be stopped, the only option was to attempt to manage it.

The tentative processes that were set in motion at the time were then interrupted by the talks and negotiations that led to the political settlement and democratic elections of 1994. Thereafter came the final constitutional negotiations and writing of the Constitution, after which followed the restructuring of local government.

In the process, a degree of momentum had been lost while getting a management handle on the urbanisation process.

While the problem was long in the making, it will not be solved in the short term.

In August last year, Mike Greeff of Greeff Properties in Cape Town probably hit it on the nail when he said: “Any idea that Cape Town’s rapidly increasing urban population will eventually be housed in decent subsidised homes is now unrealistic – no matter how much goodwill and additional funds are allocated in this direction.

“The current situation is that 200 000 extra households are now living in formal housing (or its yards) designed for one family only, while another approximately 150 000 families are living in informal settlements. The total backlog on formal subsidised housing, therefore, is in the region of some 400 000 homes.

“As the annual supply of subsidised housing [the only housing that the poor can afford] is 6 000 to 8 000 units, the backlog in subsidised formal housing is likely to increase by nearly 20 000 per annum,” he added.

“Where, therefore, do the rest of Cape Town’s people go? Obviously to informal settlements, and these,” said Greeff, “have to be accepted by the more affluent sections of the population as part of the solution.”