Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis launched the City’s Land Release Priority Programme at an Affordable Housing Indaba in Cape Town on Friday. The programme will see fast-tracking of state land release for affordable housing, and greater ease-of-doing-business for development applications. Over R17 million is allocated to cut out red tape and fast-track land release in the City’s new draft budget.
Speaking at the Indaba, Mayor Hill-Lewis said land release for affordable housing is a Priority Programme of his administration. A bespoke governance structure is in place, with a team working across departments for rapid release of City-owned land.
‘We expect several well-located properties to be on the City Council agenda in May – encouraging progress on fast-tracking land release.
Our commitment is to do more to release state-owned land for the development of well-located affordable housing, close to public transport and economic opportunities. This includes releasing land for social housing projects in the inner-city and well-located nodes elsewhere,’ said the Mayor.
The Mayor said the City is challenging the national government to match its commitment to land release and cutting regulatory red tape, and that he was encouraged by his conversations with National Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi.
Several nationally-owned mega-properties are the best located for affordable housing in Cape Town, with a game-changing potential yield of over 100 000 units. These properties include Wingfield and the completely under-utilised sprawling parliamentary village of Acacia Park, where a few MPs occasionally reside.
Land Release Priority Programme
There are four workstreams to Cape Town’s Land Release priority programme:
- A more fluid and rapid pipeline of land release for social housing
- Identifying large mixed-use sites for private sector development
- Unlocking the massive potential of micro-developers
- Developing an enabling environment to accelerate land release
Mayor Hill-Lewis said he was particularly excited about the work being done to support micro-developers, including:
- Engaging financing institutions on support for microdevelopers, which would also include a technical support component
- Exploring potential exemptions for this particular category from administrative penalties before building plan approval
- Investigating how development contributions could be paid off over time
- Developing compliant off-the-shelf building plans to make life easier
- Establishing local planning support offices in targeted areas, for accessible approvals and support
- Promoting alternative building materials and practices
Enabling Environment
The city’s new budget allocates R17m to promote ease-of-doing-business for development applications, and fast-track land release, including:
- R7,3m to upgrade the E-services online portal for Development Application Management System (DAMS). This will result in quicker approvals and faster development processes.
- R5m to enhance the City’s Rates Clearance System to shorten turnaround times for Property Revenue Clearance Certificates
- R5m for additional capacity to fast-track land release processes
The City is further working to simplify land release processes within the confines of the national regulations for Municipal Asset Transfer, including discounting land released for housing and other social purposes.
The Mayor said he is relying on the Minister’s support to amend national legislation to simplify state land release. This included constrained development funding processes via the Social Housing Regulatory Association, and regulatory restrictions on cross-subsidising social housing to make it viable.
Social Housing pipeline
Cape Town’s draft Budget for 2022/23 allocates R2,8 billion for capital expenditure on housing over the following three years, including for informal settlements upgrades, Breaking New Ground projects, support for backyard dwellers, and social housing.
The City currently has more than 6 500 social housing units in the overall pipeline across 50 land parcels citywide.
This includes 2 000 social housing units in the central Cape Town area, and 2 500 opportunities – either in the construction phase or close to it – along the Voortrekker Road Corridor and near important economic nodes.
Central Cape Town social housing projects and approximate social housing unit numbers:
- Maitland (+/- 200) is under construction.
- Projects nearing construction phase include Pine Road (+/- 240) and Dillon Road (+/- 150) in Woodstock, and the Salt River Market (+/- 200).
- Projects undergoing land use management processes to be made available for social housing include sites within the proximity of New Market Street(+/- 200); Pickwick Street (+/- 600); and the Woodstock Hospital precinct (+/-700).
- Western Cape Government-driven projects, supported by the City, include the Conradie Park development in the inner city feeder suburb of Pinelands, Founders Garden in the CBD, and Helen Bowden Nurses Home in Green Point. All of these have significant potential for social housing unit yields.
‘One of our major constraints in accelerating the pipeline of affordable housing – especially on certain inner city sites – is the cost and time burden of unlawful occupation, and the lengthy court processes the City has to follow to unlock otherwise suitable land. Securing land and buildings also presents a significant cost burden over time, but it is essential to protect valuable land for affordable housing development.
‘The orchestrated building hi-jackings of March 2017 in particular have delayed flagship social housing projects in central Cape Town. We are determined to fast-track this social housing through the correct legal channels,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis.
‘This indaba is the first of many with stakeholders. Importantly, we require the capacity, funding, commitment and support from the private sector stakeholders to achieve our goal. Releasing land for more affordable housing is a collective goal for Team Cape Town, as we build towards the vision of a City of Hope for all. The input from social housing institution partners, private developers, and financiers will lay the foundation for the next phases of engagement. The City’s new Human Settlements Strategy broadens our role as an enabler of affordable housing, in partnership with all role players. Together we can better meet the increasing demand for more affordable housing, especially for those earning below R22 000 per month,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi.