The Johannesburg Housing Company (JHC) launched a R98-million, 650-unit housing development in Johannesburg’s inner-city suburb of Newtown with a sod-turning ceremony on Thursday.
Murphy Morobe, the newly appointed chairperson of the JHC, said the project formed part of President Thabo Mbeki’s job creation programme and was endorsed by both the national and provincial departments of housing.
”We are very proud that this project will help realise the ambitions of the government while fulfilling the Johannesburg City Council’s inner-city regeneration plans,” Morobe said.
”Brickfields represents the largest public private partnership in residential housing development in South Africa.”
Morobe noted that an initial investment of R35-million through the Gauteng housing department and the Gauteng Partnership Fund, as well as the provision of land from the Johannesburg City Council, had geared up an additional R70-million of private investment.
”The importance of the initial investment from Gauteng province cannot be underestimated. It facilitated the support of Anglo American, Absa and the National Housing Finance Corporation.
”These gestures are an indication of investor confidence returning to the inner city, a confidence so vital for the future of inner-city regeneration. By working together, we are sowing the seeds for tomorrow’s harvest.”
Morobe said Brickfields represented a significant addition to the JHC’s portfolio of social housing developments in the inner and near city areas.
Since its inception in 1995 the company had established 1 756 housing units in these areas, adding more than 5% to the housing stock in the city.
Located on vacant land at the foot of the new Mandela Bridge on the northern boundary of Newtown, the Brickfields development is a key component of the Newtown Urban Design Framework for the Newtown Cultural Precinct, which forms part of the inner-city regeneration plan for Johannesburg.
The development, in keeping with the JHC’s mission, will provide good quality, value-for-money rental accommodation and services that are both affordable for the low- and moderate-income market.
It will also create employment in the area by contracting the services of entrepreneurial small-, micro- and medium-enterprise contractors wherever possible.
”Our new-build, refurbishment and conversion projects currently provide homes for more than 4 000 men, women and children in 13 buildings across Johannesburg,” said JHC chief executive officer Taffy Adler.
”Our residential developments can be found in Troyeville and Jeppestown on the city’s eastern edge, the near-city precincts of Joubert Park and Hillbrow, the CBD itself, and as far as Newtown and Fordsburg in the west.”
According to Adler, the inception of the Brickfields project also marks a turning point in the history of the JHC.
”We’ve invested more than R100-million in inner-city home-building initiatives over the past eight years or so, and have recently reached the point where our operational income covers our operational costs. As such, we’re able to start paying off the debt raised by the company on the commercial market while continuing to serve as a regenerative force in the economic, social and
environmental renewal of Johannesburg’s inner city.” — Sapa