The first 40 houses forming part of a project that will see 136 houses built in Paternoster in the Saldanha Bay municipality have been handed over to the delighted residents after a delay of two years. The project ground to a halt in 2015 following insistence from the National department of human settlements that the beneficiaries of the houses had to be forty years old or older. This left the community fuming after it can to light that many of those on the housing list would no longer qualify for a new home and there were not enough people who would qualify.
A request was made that an exception to the rule for this project be made and eventually it was agreed that the qualifying age would be dropped to 35 years or older. This reignited the project and the first 40 houses have been handed to the new owners over the past month.
Some of the residents had been waiting for more than 18 years for a house and described as a “dream come true”.
Saldahna Bay councillor Sucilla van Tura said while it had been a long wait for many residents, there were still a large number of young people in the area that were also desperate for their own homes. This is why it was decided that of the 200 plots available, 136 would have homes build on them for the original beneficiaries while the remaining 64 plots would be given to young people to erect their own shelters.