Tender documents for Cape Town’s R1-billion N2 Gateway Project warn of ”disruptive forces” that may emerge in response to the removal of residents.
The Cape Town City Council documents, issued on December 30 last year, refer to the need to ”mitigate the impact” of possible disruption. ”This is an important aspect considering the impact of removals on the communities in question,” it says.
Relocation for the estimated 12 000 households within the N2 Gateway Project area — a strip along the N2 highway from Cape Town International airport towards the city — could mean a move of almost 20km to Delft.
The relocations will begin at the end of the month when the first construction gets under way, and residents are expected to stay in temporary accomodation for four to six months.
”Some people will benefit, but most will not. Sixty to 70% of people currently in this area will be asked to go to Delft,” said Ted Baumann, an official of the Urban Resource Centre, an NGO dealing with community shelter and land rights. Baumann said the move could seriously affect people’s earning ability.
Hundreds of households in Kanana and thousands of residents of Barcelona will have to make way as the ground is unstable, flood-prone and unsuitable for housing. These areas are to be turned into open green spaces, with sporting facilities and a planned initiation school.
Resistance to removals is not the only gauntlet run by the massive housing development, in terms of which 12 000 households must relocate to make way for the planned 22 000 new homes to be built in six months. Activists complain that the Cape Town City Council has broken a promise to involve communities, while some construction companies warn that the contract period is unfeasibly short.
The scheme is the first of 18, two in each province, under the new human settlement plan announced by Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu in September, which aims to eradicate all informal settlements by 2010.
Lessons learnt on the N2 Gateway, a joint venture of the three spheres of the government spearheaded by Cape Town, will influence how other mass human settlements take shape. Next in line will be Gauteng.
The government sees the project as an important case of private-public cooperation, with private business planning, designing and building, and the state monitoring and maintaining policy direction.
It promises a delivery breakthrough in the Western Cape, after several years of underspending on the provincial housing budget. Cape Town’s housing backlog stands at 261 000 and its delivery capacity is 11 000 units a year.
Construction on the Gateway scheme is set to get under way at the end of the month and is due for completion in six months, sparking unease in the construction industry. An additional snag is the apparent lack of precise population statistics.
While the city authorities said on Wednesday that the counting of residents was complete, it has emerged that it is still under way, with the contractor said to be paying R5 for each completed questionnaire. Residents in some communities are said to have refused to cooperate, as they were told earlier that the process would be community-driven.
Sisulu’s September 9 presentation to MPs talked of 10 000 exisiting households, while the council tender documents cite 15 504.
Such friction, coming amid high grassroots expectations of housing, could add to the potential political headache of relocation. Municipal elections are due in the next year.
The authorities hope residents will move voluntarily because of the offer of decent housing, but a mass communication campaign will also be launched. Meetings between Cape Town council representatives and community leaders are already under way.
”There is no easy answer, communication is the key,” said Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo. ”Officials will not impose their way. We will go door to door, talking and being sensitive to residents’ needs.”
It is understood a national communication plan is almost complete. The focus is on informing shack dwellers of housing choices under the human settlement policy.
Among those immediately affected are hundreds of households in Joe Slovo informal settlement, where last weekend’s fire left 12 000 people homeless. The area has been earmarked for the start for the housing project.
Registration of residents got under way this week to avoid the allocation of homes to an influx of people from other areas. By Monday steps will be in place to temporarily relocate residents in flame-proof accommodation in Epping, described in the council tender document as ”a transit camp”.