Urban planners, white suburbs, and the homeless are locked in a struggle of competing needs, writes Justin Pearce
POLITICAL squabbling has halted Johannesburg’s plans to house its homeless. Shack settlements have proliferated in the city while municipal and provincial authorities have failed to reach a universally acceptable plan to accommodate squatters in formal housing.
At the heart of the conflict are the opposing demands of planners who want to reshape a city that was designed along apartheid lines, and existing residents and bankers who fear low-income housing near established residential areas will deflate property prices in the exisiting suburbs — the nimby (not in my back yard) syndrome.
Plans by the Johannesburg municipality to provide land for the homeless are in danger of being blocked by a cautious Gauteng Provincial Housing Board (PHB), which appears to have been swayed by these fears.
According to senior local government sources, the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council could withdraw from participating in the province’s subsidised housing scheme if the PHB does not shift its position.
The Johannesburg TMC was due to meet with PHB representatives this week, to negotiate a way out of the impasse.
To make matters worse, Johannesburg is full to bursting point, with a severe shortage of available land for new development.
In terms of national housing policy, responsibility for developing new housing rests ultimately with the nine provincial housing boards, although decisions can be overridden by MECs responsible for housing and planning. In Gauteng, the provincial government asked local authorities to identify sites suitable for rapid development.
First in line for land in the new development areas are squatters living in areas which are dangerous or unsuitable for continued occupation — the river floodplains in Alexandra township, for
Development sites had to be found to give residents access to employment and leisure, and close to available transport, water and sewage facilities — in several areas of the city, in mainly white suburbs, such facilities are there and
The TMC duly identified five sites, all surrounded by or bordering on existing residential areas. The sites are Bloubosrand, bordering on Randburg; Lombardy East, near Alexandra on the eastern fringe of the city; and Maroeladal, Misgund and Liefde en Vrede in the south.
According to PHB chair Martin van Zyl, the board is concerned that the TMC, in identifying the five sites, did not follow national housing policy guidelines, which require consultation with communities already in existence next to the proposed new developments. The board has also raised questions about the council’s failure to provide a blueprint of the kind of development envisaged.
The TMC has deliberately kept quiet about which land has been earmarked for development, to avoid an outcry from local residents which could scupper the programme before it began. And according to TMC sources, the urgency of the situation precluded formulation of cut-and-dried plans demanded by the PHB. Rather than presenting a complete proposal, the TMC intends allocating sites with water and sanitation laid on, which residents are to develop as best they can. Out of the R15 000 subsidy promised by the province for each house, the TMC intends to spend R5 000 on infrastructure, and make the remaining R10 000 available as a starter subsidy to the homeowner, which can then be augmented by applying to the national housing subsidy scheme.
Van Zyl said the board “wants to see an integrated city, but we want to protect the rights of everybody”. He pointed out the rights of existing property owners must be safeguarded as well as those of the homeless.
He emphasised the PHB had not rejected Johannesburg’s five suggested sites, but that there were still problems.
“It is not for us [the PHB] to prescribe sites, but Johannesburg should rethink the whole process,” he said. “There was no consultation. If you don’t have a plan, how can you negotiate?”
But there are growing fears in local government that the PHB has been swayed by the interests of bankers and lobbying by established property owners. The PHB, a statutory body which exists in each province, comprises six representatives from each of three sectors: government, community organisations, and commerce, including banks and building contractors.
People who have dealt with the Gauteng PHB have suggested certain interest groups on the board are better organised than others, and that banks and property owners have a disproportionately loud voice. Bankers oppose low-cost housing development close to established residential areas, fearing this will devalue property and undermine the security of bonds.
Stuart Grobler of the Council for Banks of Southern Africa (Cobsa) said Cobsa favoured development that followed a gradual progression from high- to low-income housing, rather than having high- and low-income areas side by side.
The TMC’s position, conversely, is to allow mixed- income development in the same area, and, in the words of one senior TMC official, “we need to convince people that it is okay to live next to low-income neighbours”.
The issue is more than just a racial one — some established Soweto residents are uneasy about squatters taking up residence down the road.
While other Gauteng cities have had no difficulty in identifying land which meets national Housing Department criteria for development without treading on the toes of existing communities, Johannesburg’s location at the centre of the Gauteng conurbation means the city has almost no room left for expansion.
Much of the vacant land to the south of the city is geologically unsuitable for housing development — to the west, north and east the existing built-up area borders on other municipalities. Cobsa argues the city is full, and that sites for low-cost development should be kept outside the city.
The city itself argues such a scheme will perpetuate the apartheid model which has low-income housing far removed from centres of employment, and is determined to accommodate its homeless within its own borders.