N2 Gateway: things fall apart

The N2 Gateway housing project in Cape Town is literally cracking up and in some places falling apart because of substandard workmanship. The Rental Tribunal Office in Cape Town has confirmed that it is ‘inundated by complaints” from resi­dents who moved into the housing complex less than six months ago.

This week, Xhanti Sigcawu, the general manager of Thubelisha Homes, the project managers for the N2 Gateway housing project, confirmed that although tenants have moved in and are paying full rent for their units, they have not yet signed off on the completion certificate because of ‘unhappiness with the standard of the work”.

‘We’re retaining 5% of the total money to be paid to Sobambisana, the project’s largest consortium, until we’re happy with final completion,” Sigcawu said. Sobambisana has accepted liability and is apparently going ‘to fix” problems at the government’s flagship housing project. Sobambisana did not respond to questions this week.

According to the N2 residents’ committee, every tenant living in the flats has either already filed a complaint with the Rental Tribunal Office or is in the process of doing so. ‘We’ve delivered hundreds of complaints to this office and still need to deliver about 200 more,” said Luthando Ndabambi, of the tenants committee, this week.

The Rental Tribunal Office’s deputy director, Andre Rossouw, confirmed that it had received ‘more than 100 complaints and we’re excepting more”. Rossouw could not say whether complainants are pursuing legal action against the department of housing or are still trying to resolve the matter out of court.

Riedwaan Davids, the N2 Gateway’s project manager, who is employed by Thubelisha Homes, said that the company had attended to ‘about 1 000 complaints” — while there are only 705 units in the complex.

This week a Cape Town city civil engineer and professional construction manager accompanied the Mail & Guardian to the housing development and said the workmanship was ‘shocking and substandard”.

The engineer, who wants to remain anonymous, visited numerous units and walked through the entire complex: ‘Some of the walls I’ve seen need to be rebuilt because it was clearly built without brick-force, which re-enforces walls. No steel-stiffeners, as re-enforcement, were used in a lot of the walls, meaning that the walls will probably not last for a long time — it’s also dangerous because these walls are only one brick-layer thick and if an adult runs into it, it could collapse. Some of the building work done, is simply done wrongly and cannot be fixed — it will have to be re-built,” the engineer said.

‘I’m seeing cracks that one should only start seeing after three or four years. Corners were cut; the builders were probably in a hurry and I’m guessing there was very little supervision happening while the building was in progress,” he added.

Most of the complaints from residents are about substandard plumbing. In one unit a toilet pipe leaks effluent water every time the toilet is flushed, flooding that unit as well as the one next door. Unless the units’ front doors are open, both houses reek of sewerage.

The project, which was supposed to provide 22 000 new housing units to shack-dwellers by June last year, has thus far delivered only 705 units. Few of these units are housing squatters because the enormous costs involved in the construction have made the rent — which is between R450 and R1 150 a month — unaffordable by most homeless and unemployed people on housing waiting lists.

Thus far the expenditure overrun on the N2 housing project is estimated at R135-million. Each unit was budgeted to cost R80 000 but upon completion by the middle of last year, the cost had escalated to more than R130 000 per unit.

In response to the M&G‘s questions about the project, the department of housing seconded several senior staff members to a meeting at the N2 project site.

Saths Moodley, special adviser to housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu, said: ‘Minister Sisulu demands that this entire N2 process should be completely transparent. This is a flagship-project. The issue of building standards is serious. If people didn’t do their work, they will be fired. Somebody should be listening to the tenants and taking their complaints seriously. Minister Sisulu will indeed be very angry to hear about this state of affairs.”