- More than 300 social housing units are on the cards in Woodstock
- The City of Cape Town last week announced the final land release of the Newmarket Street site.
- Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the 9 000 m² property will yield 375 social housing units and over 350 open market residential units.
More than 300 social housing units are on the cards in Woodstock as the City of Cape Town last week announced the final land release of the Newmarket Street site.
Addressing the full council, Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the 9 000 m² property will yield 375 social housing units and over 350 open market residential units.
Yusrah Bardien, communications officer for Ndifuna Ukwazi, a housing advocacy group, welcomed the announcement.
“We have been waiting for this for several years in the face of a worsening housing crisis. Social Housing is the only housing programme that has ‘location’ in its requirements and therefore creates well-located affordable housing, which will contribute to changing the enduring spatial apartheid patterns we currently face.
“The location of the New Market Street site is at the edge of Woodstock and the inner city, where no affordable housing (has) been built in 30 years.”
According to the mayor, the City has now released central Cape Town land parcels with an estimated yield of over 4 900 affordable housing units.
This includes 2 100 social housing units.
The sites include New Market Street, Pine Road, Dillon Lane, and Pickwick in Woodstock, as well as Salt River Market and the now tenanted Maitland Mews development. He added that more developments are in the pipeline.
The original feasibility study for this 9 000 m² New Market Street property envisaged 200 social housing units as part of a mixed-use development.
Hill-Lewis said that number has now increased to 375 social housing units.
“As part of our commitment to maximise yield working together with social housing developers, these units will be cross-subsidised by retail space and more than 350 open market residential units.”
The New Market Street site is in a prime location in Woodstock, close to all amenities and public transport and just five minutes from the Cape Town CBD.
Carl Pophaim, Mayco member for human settlements, said city-wide there are over 6 500 social housing units at various stages of the planning pipeline across 50 well-located parcels of land.
He added these units will benefit qualifying residents who earn less than R22 000 a month.
Hill-Lewis said the City’s housing grant from the national government got a R107 million cut in the current financial year.
“For a metro like the City of Cape Town, these cuts hit particularly hard because our city is growing faster than any other metro in the country and we’re about to overtake Johannesburg as South Africa’s most populous metro.”
According to the mayor, the City will spend R3,7 billion in informal settlement upgrades and Breaking New Grounds (BNG) housing over the next three years. “That number includes R126 million for new water, sanitation and waste installations. It also includes R36 million for electrifications; R1 billion in upgrades to bulk services, in-situ upgrades, serviced sites, roads, super-blocking and emergency interventions; and R2,5 billion for BNG housing.”
Hill-Lewis appealed to the national government to release some of the “mega-properties”.
“We estimate that around 100 000 social housing opportunities are possible at sites such as Wingfield, Youngsfield, Ysterplaat and the Parliamentary Village.
“I hope that the national winds of change will blow in a fresh urgency to the release of some of the mega-properties owned by the national government throughout our metro.”
Bardien urged the City to start with the construction “as soon as possible”.
“We welcome this development and the urgency with which the mayor is approaching the matter. We look forward to the turning of sods and the arrival of construction cranes as soon as possible.”
