The City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi, visited the Macassar housing project today, 18 August 2020, to check on its progress. The project will provide qualifying beneficiaries from the approved target areas with State-subsidised homes and construction is under way. The City is monitoring the area to ensure that it is able to react should there be any attempts to invade the land, as can be seen at other projects across the metro.
During Tuesday’s site visit to check on the progress of the project, it was noted that much work had already been done. This housing project will see some of Cape Town’s most vulnerable residents become first-time property owners and create employment opportunities for the local community during the construction period. Construction of the engineering infrastructure and the houses is a multi-year project and approximately R132 million has been budgeted for this project over the next three years.
The project will also include the provision of an electricity network to support the housing project. A professional team has been appointed for the design of the electricity network, which is progressing well.
‘This project is testament to the City’s commitment to service delivery through the provision of housing opportunities in a fair and systematic way that does not allow or encourage queue-jumping; which is what results from the attempts at illegal occupation that have been taking place. When homes are built for our most vulnerable residents, it empowers them as first-time property owners. Our qualifying beneficiaries are one step closer to receiving their BNG homes which they have been waiting patiently for many years.
‘The Macassar housing project is a celebration of the partnership between the City and the community who have been working together for many years to witness this project become a reality for our qualifying beneficiaries,’ said Councillor Booi.
The housing project is well under way and has commenced with engineering services being installed. The contract for the construction of the civil works project commenced at the end of November 2019 and will be completed over two phases. Due to COVID-19, it is likely that the completion of construction will be delayed by a few months.
Construction was able to resume in May 2020 within health and safety COVID-19 Alert Level 4 regulations, after it was halted in March 2020 due to the national lockdown. The City has worked hard to make up for this lost time. Despite this delay, the City was able to spend some R10 million of the capital budget for the project during the 2019/20 financial year. This was due to proactive acceleration of certain civil works at the onset of the contract.
The civil services for Phase 1 was planned for completion by the end of 2020, but due to the delay, this will continue until early in 2021. The construction of the houses will begin after the installation of the engineering services has been completed.
The civil works for Phase 2, which constitute the provision of services to the bulk of the erven, is estimated to be completed by the end of May 2023, if completed according to plan.
The City has already appointed a contractor who will be responsible for the construction of the housing units.
‘I am pleased to see the project progressing well because it means we are one step closer to seeing construction commence and our beneficiaries taking occupation of their homes. I am looking forward to returning to this site to check on its progress and to hand over keys to the beneficiaries.
‘In addition to the provision of houses, another important aspect of this project is that it will create employment opportunities for the community as the contractors will be employing local enterprises and labour who are registered on the subcouncil database to work on site.
‘We encourage the community to continue to support and work together with the City to ensure that this project stays on schedule so we are able to soon celebrate the handover of these houses to our qualifying beneficiaries and their families,’ said Councillor Booi.