Huge progress but missing a trick

Ever since the advent of full democracy in South Africa in 1994 housing the landless poor, especially in the urban areas, has been one of the main instruments to fight the effects of poverty. Providing decent formal housing to the poor is, however only the first step in the rehabilitation of the poor and properly integrating them into  modern society.

The job is not fully done until people own the house they live in, turning it into a capital asset which they can use as a launching pad to improve other elements of their standard of living.

On the provision front, South Africa has done quite well since 1994 and the Human Settlements Ministry reported recently that almost three million houses – generically called “RDP houses” – or serviced sites  have been provided by the government

On the “property” front, where the deeds to these properties have been registered in the names of the people who occupy them, the picture however is less rosy. Of those almost three million properties provided, only 1.44 million were formally registered on the deeds registry.

This means that 1.5 million housing subsidy beneficiaries have not received the deeds to their properties. In the process opportunities to raise billions of rands as collateral by those beneficiaries of government subsidised housing are going to waste.

It would seem that in many instances red tape problems with the formal proclamation as townships of land on which the housing is provided, is a major stumbling block in regularising the situation

Joburg initiative

The City of Johannesburg, South Africa’s most densely populated metropole has recently launched an initiative aimed at turning this situation around for the people of that city in the near future.

For Johannesburg residents who have been waiting for years to receive title deeds to their very own houses there is new hope now in terms of the new My Land, My Heritage project.

Under the project the first 300 people were given their title deeds. Executive Mayor Parks Taum at a special ceremony on 17 January at Helderfontein Conference Centre in Kyalami handed over title deeds to these beneficiaries.

The ceremony was part of the rollout of the Johannesburg Property Company’s land regularisation programme, which falls under the banner of the My Land, My Heritage project.

. “This event is set to be an emotional and extraordinary day for these residents of our city, and it will be a great honour for me to hand over these documents which signify advancement on so many levels,” mayor Tau said at the time the ceremony was under planning.

It comes under the ambit of Joburg 2040, the city’s Growth and Development Strategy (GDS), which was launched in October 2011. Joburg 2040 guides the city’s long-term growth plan and vision for the next 30 years, going into 2040.

“Our collective and inclusive vision for the City of Johannesburg is one where community development, personal growth and social mobility are enhanced, so that challenges of poverty, vulnerability, inequality and social exclusion are fundamentally addressed,” he says. “The event marks another major step in the right direction towards achieving this.”

The Johannesburg Property Company (JPC) introduced its land regularisation programme in 2005, with the aim of auditing, verifying and transferring urban land to people who were previously unable to own land because of apartheid legislation. It comprises two phases: a full audit of council-owned land and identifying land release strategies, and implementing these release strategies.

Property economy

“The land regularisation programme is unique to the City of Johannesburg, forming the basis of a sustainable property economy through expediting the transfer of properties to beneficiaries, as well as releasing vacant sites on public tender,” says the managing director of the JPC, Helen Botes.

People who occupied council land illegally are being evicted. Over the next three to five years, the programme aims to transfer and release about 3 700 properties in Alexandra, Soweto, Orange Farm and Ivory Park, she adds.

There are a variety of advantages of adopting the programme, particularly that it caters for the transfer of property to legitimate tenants. “By transferring the properties to beneficiaries – and simultaneously compiling a verifiable and more accurate asset register – the city is better placed to secure an increased rates base, while also contributing to the implementation of the city’s growth and development strategy,” says the member of the mayoral committee for economic development, Sello Lemao.

“The two-tiered programme focuses  firstly on formulating property plans for earmarked areas. The second phase includes improving the sites and releasing them to beneficiaries.”

By doing this, the programme provides economic incentives to invest in strategic parcels of land and stimulates economic and social development.

With the help of the provincial housing department and the National Treasury, the JPC has been able to make the handover possible. Sponsors of the event on 17 January include Investec, Atterbury Property Developments, La Farge and Calgro M3 Holdings.

Overal picture

Urban LandMark, an NGO dedicated to making urban land markets work for the poor, recently said delays in township proclamation were the major factor undermining the transfer of title deeds to beneficiaries of housing subsidies.

Local Government Research Centre director Clive Keegan said the knock-on effect of this was that those who did not have title deeds were unable to raise collateral finance on their properties.

“This could be used to improve their dwellings. Where they have title they are able to acquire household goods and also make use of capital borrowed against their properties to start small businesses,” Keegan said.

He said in half of the households their ability to use their property to project themselves out of the working class into the middle class was lost.

Urban LandMark researchers Girly Makhubela, Lucille Gavera and Lerato Ndjwili-Potele also made the point that “poor households cannot fully benefit from the ownership of a property and use it  as an asset and to improve their financial circumstances”.

They noted that while there had been much emphasis on the poor building quality of many subsidised houses, “scant attention is being paid to the potentially more harmful long-term effects of not transferring registered title to subsidy properties”.

(The Human Settlements Department provides small low-cost houses on a stand to qualifying individuals with limited income.)

The major cause was a failure by developers – both in the government and the private sector – to finalise the establishment and proclamation of new areas being developed for subsidised housing.

The department said many beneficiaries of housing had not collected their title deeds even though they had been processed. Urban LandMark said this could be the result of a lack of understanding of the importance of the deeds.

Among municipalities that were tackling the legal problems were Johannesburg, Overstrand and Tshwane (Pretoria).

In Pretoria, about 8 000 title deeds had been registered but not issued.

Urban LandMark said metro and large municipalities should establish dedicated teams that focused on the township proclamation and establishment process.

Urban LandMark noted that the Municipal Systems Act provided that a registrar of deeds could only register the transfer of a property upon submission of a certificate issued by a municipality.

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Comments (1)

• |2012-01-23 09:24:36 elle  - Housing
  The people appointed in municipalities to monitor should do monitoring at least weekly, that is physicaally and the books.
  
  Municipalities should also do away with the tendering system.
  Appoint people to oversee the building of the houses with proper qualifications and hire unemployed local people to build houses as this is what the people who win the tenders do. The problem is that they cannot run the business and are too hasty for self gain.
  The municipality buys the material from the wholesalers in a strictly monitored systemmmm and allocate to a stock controller.
  
  Municipalities should also ensure that there are no people who are not on the lists that get the houses and that the houses are not sold to others, including illegal foreigners
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