City of Cape Town on outstanding matters; Outcome of investigation into law enforcement conduct during eviction; Human settlements plan; with Deputy Mayor

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Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs

17 July 2020
Chairperson: Ms F Muthambi (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

Video: City of Cape Town on outstanding matters; Outcome of investigation into law enforcement conduct during eviction; Human settlements plan
Audio: City of Cape Town on outstanding matters; Outcome of investigation into law enforcement conduct during eviction; Human settlements plan  Part 2

In a virtual meeting, the City of Cape Town presented to the Committee its human settlement programmes, which provided insight on its housing projects, its budget and budget cuts, the impact that the cuts had had on the delivery of housing, as well as about the various government grants that the City had received, and their respective uses.

The City said that budget cuts would affect the future of housing projects that had been planned. However, to ensure that projects which were already in progress were kept going until completion, money was being redirected to the current projects. On the Urban Settlements Development Grant (USDG) grant alone, over R84 million had been cut from the City’s original budget of R536 million. It also reported that between 2015 and 2020, no less than 82% of the USDG budget had been spent.

The Committee was asked to assist the City with acquiring a piece of land in Philippi, currently under the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, which would be used to build about 3 000 units in an attempt to de-densify Ithemba Farms, as a part of the COVID-19 prevention effort.

Committee Members raised various concerns ranging from communities being flooded annually during the heavy winter storms, the City’s consistent forceful evictions, and service provision to backyard dwellers, to Covid-19 de-densification projects.

A Member said the problem with having poor infrastructure was that the infrastructure would require constant fixing, resulting in money being spent on the same projects over and over again. He asked the Mayor what he thought a sustainable solution to this problem would be. As things stood, poor infrastructure which required constant maintenance and repair seemed to be a lucrative business for businesses, while it was an extensive cost to the poor. He suggested that instead of giving out tenders for maintenance and repair projects, the City should consider employing people whose job it would be to fix and repair infrastructure.

Another Member said the Committee wanted to get a sense of how many people were in need of formal settlements. A plan would have helped it to understand how many informal settlements there were in the City, and how many people qualified for human settlement so the City could plan and allocate accordingly. This would also allow the City to avoid having temporary settlements becoming permanent. The City’s plan would also have allowed the Committee to understand the structure of land ownership in the City so that when the time came for the expropriation of land without compensation to be fast-tracked, there would be a clear picture of the composition of land ownership in the City.

The City indicated that it had initiated a project to repair and, where required, to replace underground draining and sewerage systems. It would continue to follow all legal processes to evict people who occupied vacant land identified for integrated housing development projects. It was also assisting backyard dwellers with the provision of electricity and water connection points, as they were usually exploited, with the house owner charging high fees for these services but still restricting access. The City would also continue to prioritise allocating houses to vulnerable groups, which included people with disabilities, child-headed households and the elderly.

The draft Special Adjustments Budget report was adopted by the Committee for adoption, with the EFF voting to reject it.

Meeting report

Opening remarks

The Chairperson said the intention of the meeting was to follow up with the City of Cape Town (CoCT) on some of the matters which had been raised during the previous meeting. These pertained particularly to land for human settlement, but the City was also welcome to bring up any other matter where they might require intervention or assistance.

Mr Dan Plato, Executive Mayor of Cape Town, said it was important that the Committee and CoCT continued to engage in order for Committee to understand what the City was doing at all times, but also for it to be able to advise the City on how to deal with certain matters. The presentation would provide insight on CoCT’s housing project, insights regarding its budget and budget cuts, the impact that budget cuts had had on the delivery of housing in the city, as well as the government grant that the City had received.

Despite the budget cuts, Cape Town was doing well with regard to housing delivery.

CoCT Human Settlement Programme

Mr Rayan Rughubar, Chief Director: Housing Development, CoCT, said the Human Settlement Programme within the city was undertaken by three departments in the Human Settlements Directorate:

  • Formal housing development, which was 100% grant-funded from the Urban Settlements Development Grant (USDG) and the Human Settlements Development Grant (HSDG). This was the department responsible for the construction of new housing through the Breaking New Ground (BNG) and Community Residential Unit (CRU) programmes, the management of the Policing Needs and Priorities (PNP) programme and social housing ;
  • Public housing, which was 100% funded by the CoCT, looked after the rental stock owned by the City and was also responsible for maintenance and upgrades of the units;
  • Informal settlement upgrading component, which was also 100% funded from the USDG and the Upgrading of Informal Settlements UISP grant, and was responsible for the upgrading of informal settlements and the provision of humanitarian relief when there were floods or fires.

Formal Housing Development

Mr Rughubar referred to the budget for the current financial year for projects under construction, and said that based on the allocations from the USDG and HSDG from the Provincial Department of Human Settlement, the CoCT had undertaken 13 projects where the construction of services was underway. The CoCT was also working on the construction of infrastructure for the Imizamo Yethu project in Hout Bay, and through the HSDG funding it would also be undertaking the construction of top structures.

The slide detailing budget allocations had been based on the May 2020 budget approval, but since then there had been further cuts to the HSDG from National Treasury to provinces, and these cuts impacted both the city and municipalities within the province.

The internal services under construction at Maroela South was one of the projects currently under construction. There were just under 600 structures being constructed in the first phase, and another 1 000 units were to be developed in the future. The CoCT was also busy with the construction of top structures in The Hague in Delft.

R83 million had been set aside for new construction commencing almost immediately, as these USDG and HSDG projects were ready for tender. They included Maroela North, with almost 1700 units to be built, the Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) project in Symphony Way, where the CoCT was working in conjunction with ACSA to realign the airport runway and reallocate those people whose homes currently lay in its course. This project would build about 3 000 new units. The third project was Sir Lowry’s Pass Village in Somerset West, close to the N2 freeway.

The CoCT currently had 25 USDG and HSDG projects in the planning stages, some of these projects would go out to construction later in the financial year, and included the Highlands Drive project in Mitchells Plain and the Mahama project in Khayelitsha.  

An amount of R133 million had been set aside for planning, designing and the start of construction on some of these projects in the current financial year. These projects would also have an impact on the City’s budget in the following financial years. To account for this, the City had budgeted R200 million for the 2021/22 financial year, and R212 million for 2022/23.

The CoCT was also looking at developing in-fill sites within already existing and established areas. Belhar and Athlone were examples of where all vacant sites had been identified and assessed for development, and all those sites which had been approved. The City was in the process of designing and planning for development.

The CoCT was also responsible for social housing and community residential units. Currently there were five projects under social housing in Woodstock, Salt River and Parow which would help to integrate those communities with social housing. These projects were all in the planning stages, except for the New Market Street site, which was fairly well-advanced with development and designs. These projects were being undertaken with the Social Housing Regulatory Authority (SHRA) and accredited social housing institutions.

For the CRUs, the City of Cape Town was focusing on the 11 000-odd hostels across the city. The intention was to upgrade these hostels into family units, starting with demolition and construction in Langa, Gugulethu and Nyanga. This programme was at risk because the national Department had not budgeted for the construction of new CRUs through the HSDG. The project was intended to be funded through the Social Housing Regulatory Authority (SHRA), although the CoCT was still waiting for confirmation of the funding source, even though the City was ready to go out to tender with the Langa programme, with some of the developments which were started a few years ago.

Glenhaven was an example of the City’s newest social housing projects. It had been recently completed and was now ready for occupation. The CoCT, with the social housing partner, had been allocating and signing tenants up. The project had been well designed, and the City was waiting to assess how it operated in order to use it as an example throughout the city if it did well.

There were currently 11 USDG and HSDG provincial projects undertaken by the provincial department. For the current financial year, R123 million had been set aside for these projects. In the past four to five years, the City had funded about R800 million on provincial projects.
The Du Noon, Ithemba and Kosovo projects had helped with the de-densification of these areas, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Mr Rughubar said that as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the national Department had had to reduce its allocation to provinces and divert funding to informal settlements across the country, and this had had an effect on the City’s USDG allocation. Since May, it had had a further budget cut of R84 million from the human settlement allocation of the USDG, and this had brought the City’s 2020/21 budget allocation down by R84 million -- from R206 million to R122 million.

The CoCT had managed to keep the current projects under construction going by holding back on some of the new projects so that funding could flow to the projects which were already under way.
This would affect the schedule for the delivery of projects, and many projects would be delayed.

The City had started 2019/20 off with a USDG allocation of R536 million, which had increased slightly in January to R539 million, and decreased to R424 million after the May 2020 covid-19 adjustment budget. The approved budget for 2020/21 had been based on R540 million, but there had also been a cut of R84 million to the 2020/21 adjustment budget. The City was currently sitting with a USDG allocation of R456 million.

The HSDG allocation provided the funds used for top structures. The City’s original allocation for 2020/21 had been R611 million, in January, this amount was dropped to R500 million and then to R336 million, and the figure gazetted in March had been R266 million. Since March, there had been a further cut of R40 million, and the City had been informed of another cut of R53 million, which would leave the grant allocation at R173 million. An allocation of R173 million would be enough for the CoCT to build only about 1 600 houses in the current financial year.

The City’s 2020/21 non-financial targets had been based on the original budgets, and 2 103 serviced sites had been anticipated for delivery in the current financial year, along with 3 356 top structures.
The number of top structures would be significantly affected by the current budget cuts, but the City was still expecting to deliver on the serviced sites by moving funding to those projects which were still able to deliver, and holding back on new projects. Once it received confirmation from the province on the reduced HSDG allocation, the City would be able to make adjustments to the top structure targets.

Public Housing

This was a project funded fully by the CoCT, and listed in the presentation were all the projects that the City had undertaken, both small and larger projects.

One of the projects was the electrical rewiring project in rental units, on which it was spending just over R20 million a year for the next few years. It had also been replacing aged steel window frames, at a cost of R20 million a year. It had also undertaken the replacement of old deteriorated roofs with more modern materials, on which around R30 million a year was being spent. A total amount of R144 million for these projects, among many others, had been allocated for the current year for maintenance and the upgrading of rental stock.

Informal settlement upgrading

Ms Riana Pretorius, Director: Informal Settlements, COCT, said the UISPG programme dealt with the upgrading of informal settlements (UIS) and in-situ upgrading in the city. There were 464 traditional informal settlements for which the City needed to find a solution. With the envelope grant-funding which the City received from national Government, there was very little that the City could do in terms of upgrading informal settlements.

Each and every informal settlement had its unique set of needs, constraints and community dynamics, which made it very difficult to have a standard rollout of services in different settlements, so programmes had to be customised in every settlement. The typical rollout of products by the CoCT included Temporary Relocation Areas (TRAs) and Incremental Development Areas (IDAs), the UISP -- which was a National Housing Programme in terms of Chapter 3 of the Housing Code -- which, because of the funding received from national Government, did not allow the City to build any top structures.

The CoCT had two programmes of its own -- the Re-Blocking programme, and the Enhanced Re-Blocking programme. These projects took a community approach and had close to a 100% community buy-in. Stakeholder engagement was key for informal settlement upgrading.

The City usually had to create a TRA or an IDA before upgrading an informal settlement. The IDA was for when people were moved from settlements with no real intention of moving back, as there would be no more space after the building of infrastructure.

In-situ upgrading took place in areas which had already been de-densified, qualifier beneficiaries had been extracted from the area and had been relocated to BNG housing projects, and what remained behind were the non-qualifiers. After the reallocation, the City got land-use approvals for the site, and serviced sites such as formal roads, water and sanitation were built.

The next phase of informal settlement upgrading included people applying for a People’s Housing Project (PHP), where top structures were developed with housing grants.

For the re-blocking projects, the City -- in partnership with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) -- had reorganised existing settlements, created hard-surfaced roads and provided each residential home with electricity, an individual water and sanitation point, and a postal address. It had also piloted an enhanced re-blocking project, where double-storey arrangements were created with firewalls. The enhanced re-blocking project had proved to be an interesting project, since it allowed people who would not have previously qualified for a BNG, an opportunity to qualify.

The City had also learnt that this project was not necessarily a faster approach for addressing the issues faced in informal settlements, as it required a lot of administrative work.
 
Superblock areas were mostly used for larger informal settlements, such as Sweethomes with over 4 000 structures, and Enkanini with about 11 000 structures. Doing in-situ upgrading for these large informal settlements takes about seven to nine years, but by introducing grid-designs and infrastructure, the City could bring more services to people faster, and individual blocks could be upgraded over time.

Ms Pretorius referred to UISPG projects for the Medium Term Revenue Expenditure Framework (MTREF), and said that for the next three financial years, the City would be collaborating with the provincial housing programme on the Southern Corridor Programme in the Gugulethu and Airport Precinct, and Kosovo and other informal settlements in close proximity. For the 2020/21 financial year, R10 million had been budgeted for the programmes respectively, and for 2021/22 R122 million and R63 million had been budgeted for the projects respectively. These budgets would have to be taken under review when the City had its future Division of Revenue Act (DORA) allocations.

The City’s overall budget after a budget reduction of R19 million was R103 million for the current financial year. All of these projects were under construction on this budget.

The City also had a backyarder programme, where it provides a precast toilet, tap stand and wash basin to backyard dwellers in its rental units. This project had about R22 million allocated for the current financial year.

There were three projects within Cape Town that had been identified for de-densification by the City and province in order to minimise the spread of the COVID-19 virus. These were Raceway Park in Du Noon, which was intended to deliver about 1 500 units, 2 000 units in Kosovo, Philippi, and 3 000 units in Ithemba Farms, Khayelitsa.

Mr Rughubar referred to areas where the Committee could assist the City. He said with the Ithemba Farms land, the province had through the Housing Development Agency (HAD) and the National Department of Human Settlements, approached the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) to release a piece of land which could be used to build the 3 000 units. This had been an ongoing process since April, and the City had not yet received any confirmation of the release of land. 

The planning of the Du Noon site was well advanced, as planners had already submitted their application to the City, and the plan was currently under consideration.

A move from single storey temporary, to multi-storey semi-permanent, structures was anticipated in all three developments.

USDG funding could be used for bulk and leak infrastructure, but the City also funded all of its internal services such as engineering. The City was also looking for sites upon which BNG non-qualifiers could be accommodated, and the provision of individual services to each house. USDG funding was also used to construct and deliver public facilities such as libraries and clinics, as well to provide interim city upgrades.

He described the City’s performance over the last few years In 2015, 90% of the USDG grant had been spent, in 2016, 91% was spent, and in 2017 93% was spent. Expenditure of the grant in 2018/19 had dropped to 83%, and in 2019/20 82% of the grant was spent. This had been due to the fact that the City had had up until 17 July 2020 to process the last invoices for payment

Discussion

Mr K Ceza (EFF) said there were some issues which he would like to raise regarding the infrastructure projects mentioned in presentation. There had recently been a video of the streets of a street flooding in Philippi, and this was a common occurrence in other areas such as Gugulethu and Du Noon due to poor drainage systems in those areas, despite their being formal settlement areas. The same thing was not happening in suburbs such as Bishopscourt. All of these places were in the same city, and thus the quality of the infrastructure should be the same. The problem with having poor infrastructure was that the infrastructure would require constant fixing, resulting in money being spent on the same projects over and over again. He asked the Mayor what he thought a sustainable solution to this problem would be.

As things stood, poor infrastructure which required constant maintenance and repair seemed to be a lucrative business for businesses, while it was a cost to the poor people. He suggested that instead giving out tenders for maintenance and repair projects, the City consider employing people whose job it would be to fix and repair infrastructure. However, above all this, the City should ensure that there was proper planning behind every infrastructure project before it was rolled out.

Mr B Hadebe (ANC) said at the previous meeting, the Committee had requested a human settlement plan of the City of Cape Town, with specific reference to Khayelitsha. The reason for this was that in order to be able to plan properly, one needed to understand what one was dealing with. 
Although he welcomed the presentation, he noted that there were certain key issues which were missing in order for the presentation to be qualified as a fully detailed presentation. Firstly, with the city plan that the Committee had requested, the Committee wanted to get a sense of how many people were in need of formal settlement. Secondly, the plan would have helped to indicate how many informal settlements there were in the city, and in those settlements how many people qualified for human settlement, which was something that would allow the City to plan and allocate resources accordingly. This would also allow for the city to avoid having temporary settlements becoming permanent, and also establish how much land was available for building on and how the shortfall for housing would be accommodated.

The City’s plan would also have allowed the Committee to understand the structure of land ownership in the City so that when the time came for the expropriation of land without compensation to be fast-tracked, there would be a clear picture of the composition of land ownership in the city.
The plan would also help to establish how much housing the City could undertake as a part of its integrated housing project, besides the projects which had already been mentioned.
Without these details, it would be difficult for the Committee to execute its oversight role.

He said many people in the city were frustrated over how long they had been waiting for housing. He referred to the Imizamo Yethu project, where people had been waiting for the completion of a housing project since 2007, yet this very project was still reflecting among the City’s projects. He also asked for clarity on the Driftsands project, which had been subjected to section 43 and had been approved under the mayorship of Patricia De Lille, but still seemed to have been delayed.

He requested that the City provide the Committee with a follow-up document detailing its planned housing projects, their date of inception and planned date of completion.

He commended the presentation, saying it indicated the City’s willingness to cooperate with the Committee.

Ms H Mkhalipi (EFF) asked how the Mayor felt after losing a court case on 14 July, because the last time the Committee had engaged him on the approach that the City and the province took when dealing with disputes in communities, it had said that they were very quick to go to court and evict people instead of engaging with them.  As someone who claimed to be one with the people and not an enemy, she asked how the Mayor felt when he lost the court case defending land which had been taken by force from indigent people.

She asked if the Mayor had met with evicted Bulelani Qolani and given him an apology after publicly stripping him of his dignity. The Committee had received information that since the last engagement with the City, no more people had been evicted without any proper plan to accommodate those people who were landless in their own country.

She asked for clarity on the backyard projects, and why the City was providing only water and not formal structures. She also asked about the COVID-19 de-densification project, and what was supposed to happen to those people in other informal settlements who had not been considered for such a project. 

She said that despite not evicting people, councillors were complaining that people were not being provided with basic services, and more than that, the office of the Mayor was not responding to the calls of the councillors.

Finally, she asked which NGOs and women’s organisations the City was working with on the PNPs. Was the Mayor also engaging those organisations which came with their own concepts for housing?

Mr G Hendricks (Al Jama-ah) told the Committee that he had been a councillor in the City of Cape Town and had also served on the appeals committee, where they had dealt with the housing issue every month during his term. Listening to the presentation it seemed that the Mayor was very passionate about providing housing to the people of the Cape Flats, and this passion stemmed from the fact that the Mayor was also a product of the Cape Flats. From the presentation, it could be concluded that the Mayor had a very good team that had been working to address the issue of housing. However, it seemed that it was only good at addressing a small percentage of the housing issue in Cape Town, so there needed to be an intervention to help it to address the larger part of this issue.

He acknowledged that he had advocated that the City be placed under administration to ensure that the City managed to address the greater part of the city’s housing issue. The problems which the City faced on the housing front were it was unable to provide enough top structure housing to its people, but also the national government was not giving the City and province enough money to address the housing problem, which meant that this was a hopeless situation.

Over the past seven years, he had been looking for a solution to the housing problem in Cape Town, and he suggested that the Committee budget for a helicopter and fly along area of the Philippi Economic Development Initiative (Pedi) along Landsdowne Road, where millions had been invested for the building of infrastructure over the last 10 years. Pedi could provide over 40 000 houses, some churches and farmland, and infrastructure for this area had already been built yet it was hidden away.
He asked the Mayor to go back to ask the City to present to the Committee on the Pedi area.

Lastly, he said Masiphumelele was where most of the City’s poor children had been living for the last 20 years, and the conditions in the area were less than desirable, with children playing around sewage. There was a lot of work to be done in the area, as the living conditions were amongst the worst in the world, yet the presentation had not provided for a TRA for the people of Masiphumelele to be moved to an area that ANC Mayor Nomaindiya Mfeketo had identified over 10 years ago.
This was a project which had been abandoned after a DA mayor took over, and this was because the white people near Masiphumelele did not want black or coloured people living in close proximity to them, and due to apartheid spatial planning all housing projects for people of colour were far away from white suburbs

Ms M Tlou (ANC) said that if the City had good management, they would also have good results in municipalities. Some of the key result areas which could be measured were in planning, organising, staffing, delegating, supervising and measuring and reporting. Excellent programmes required excellent performance in each of the above-mentioned areas, and poor performance in even one of those key areas could damage and threaten the progress of municipalities.

She asked the City to explain what their key successes were in the contractor incubation programme, which had been initiated in order to create an environment that would enable the growth and development of small and medium enterprises for women contractors and the youth.
The City was also asked to indicate how many youth members had undertaken the youth service programme in the built environment, and been trained in accredited built environment expertise in partnership with the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) and National Youth Commission (NYC), which had not been not mentioned in the report.

The Mayor was asked to share with the Committee the City’s implementation of biometric systems to combat fraud in the allocation of houses. She also asked from which year waiting-list beneficiaries were being overtaken by emergencies, what the City had not achieved in its targets, and what the reasons for this non-achievement were.

She asked how much construction management capacity was mandated to be local, and said many projects involving contractors had been mentioned, but many were in the planning stages. She asked how many were in the implementation stage.

She said planning for new reconstruction and development programme (RDP) structures without proper planning for infrastructure necessary in new areas, such as schools and recreational areas, was going to be wasteful expenditure since learners moving into those new areas would need transport to move to and fro. Good measures had to be put in place in order to understand what a good framework would look like.

The Chairperson asked about the expenditure pattern of the USDG which had been mentioned in the presentation, and highlighted that since inception the City had been returning unspent funds. Had the recent budget reduction had anything to do with this? If not, what other reasons were there for the reduction?

She asked the CoCT to point exactly to the areas in which 90% of the USDG grant had been spent. She wanted to know when the Somerset West, Morning Star and Morkel’s Cottage development projects had started, and what their statuses were currently.  Regarding the Morning Star project, she asked about the R718 million in irregular expenditure that had been reported in the Auditor-General’s report of 2017/18 and 2018/19, and yet there were no houses to show for it.

The City had raised the issue of not having land to build new houses on, but there had also been reports of the City disposing of land to private developers in places such as Plattekloof. This suggested that the City wanted to uphold apartheid spatial planning by relegating poor Capetonians to the peripheral ghettos of the city and away from established economic opportunities.

It seemed like the City did not have programmes to accommodate small-scale farmers who came to the City to look for land, yet land was being disposed to private owners.

She also asked if the city had promoted integrated housing in the inner city, and pointed out that the City had told the high court that it had no obligation to promote social housing in the inner city. She asked if the City agreed with apartheid spatial planning.

She asked why the City’s document management system (DMS) had not been amended to bring it into line with the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act (SPLUMA) to require affordable social housing in the inner city, and also why the City had not heeded the recommendation to roll out rainwater tanks to poor and working class households, considering the serious concerns about sanitation.

In closing, she asked why the city had stopped the Foreshore development for the working class.

Mayor’s response

Executive Mayor Plato said people who were misinforming the Committee on many issues. It was not true that the Foreshore development had stopped -- was waiting for a report on the development to be presented to him.

Secondly, the rollout of water and water tanks to poor households was still taking place. The City had procured 28 water tankers to take water into communities on a daily basis, and if anyone disputed this, he was willing to enter into a discussion with that person.

On integrated housing and inner-city housing projects, he said these houses were for people of all colours, and the Plattekloof project was one such project which aimed to provide affordable, integrated housing for people from different economic strata.

The City of Cape Town was already working on addressing the problem of apartheid spatial planning. These projects included the Parow projects, the Goodwood project, the Plattekloof project and the Maitland and Woodstock projects. The Conradie project which had been mentioned in the presentation was going to be the biggest integrated housing project located near the transport points and business nodes.

Regarding Mr Ceza’s points, he agreed that sustainable drainage programmes were important, and these projects were well under way in the city. He explained that there were problems with old underground drainage which was costing the city millions, but these issues had been planned and budgeted for in the old underground infrastructure programme, and was being driven by the water and waste department. He also added that many storm pipes were being replaced.

Responding to Ms Mkhaliphi’s comments, he said the City did not enjoy evictions. The Hout Bay case had reflected negatively on the City, but the City had offered the person two alternative sites to build their informal structure, and they had refused. It was important to stress that in Cape Town, people insisted on moving on to land which the city intended to develop, and once this happened the City then needed to look elsewhere for development sites, which tended to delay the development process.

It was important to stress that communities were also frustrated by the outcomes of the high court case, because these people had been looking forward to the development of the site. If the City stopped evicting people from sites meant for development, then the City would never be able to achieve their brick and mortar housing development targets, and many poor people would be destined to live in shacks forever while it was the City’s target to get rid of shacks.

He asked Members to help the City get rid of shacks in the city and build brick and mortar structures.
He also said that many people were using the lockdown as an excuse to invade open sites.

Regarding Bulelani Qolani, the Mayor said he had tried different ways of reaching out to him, but he did not seem interested in engaging with the Mayor.

He said the purpose of the backyard structures project was to give backyard dwellers toilets, water and electricity in order to end their dependence on landlords for basic essentials. The City was undertaking this project because these backyard structures were situated on CoCT land and were complaining about landlords withholding access to water and toilets, despite them paying their monthly rent. In this situation, there was also a need to improve the lives of these people. He added that backyarders were also being filtered into the formal housing project at the same time.

He vehemently disagreed that there were no basic services being provided by the City to councillors in informal settlements. He had been visiting informal settlements frequently to look at the problems which needed to be addressed, and delivering emergency food parcels to councillors personally.

He agreed with Mr Hendricks’s comment that he was passionate about housing development in the City, but admitted that there were limitations when it came to service delivery. He would look into the Pedi site and report back to the Committee. He believed in infrastructure-led economic development, and it was important to consider the infrastructure of an area before developing it.

On the conditions in Masiphumelele, he had not encountered the same conditions described by the Members when he had visited. There were massive Peoples Housing Process (PHP) developments currently taking place in Masiphumelele and, in conjunction with the building of houses, there had to be the upgrading of infrastructure in the area.

He said he was willing to come back to answer any unresolved issues, to show the City’s commitment to resolving the housing issues in the city.

CoCT responses

Councillor Malusi Booi, COCT Mayco Member: Human Settlements, added that he did not think that there would be enough money to rent a helicopter. He thanked Mr Hadebe, who had been writing to the CoCT requesting that people who had invaded land in Khayelitsha be removed. He explained that had people been allowed to settle on this land, it would have compromised the City’s development project and halted the housing project meant to supply houses for more than 1 000 families

He agreed with Mr Ceza that infrastructure was a very challenging issue. He explained that infrastructure projects were informed by urbanisation, so these problems affected both formal and informal settlements in areas such as Du Noon, Zwezwe and Luyolo. This was the reason why the City had taken on the de-densification projects in these areas, and many millions had been invested in upgrading settlements.

He was glad that the issue of amenities had been raised by Ms Tlou. The City had been trying to raise the point for a long time that when developing housing projects, it was important to also build amenities.

The City was aware and understanding of the fact that the national government simply did not have enough money to build housing. However, addressing apartheid spatial planning was one of the City’s priorities, and projects were already under way. He explained that social housing catered for those people who earned more than R3 500, but less than R22 000.

On Masiphumelele, he said that there were 227 units currently being built in the area, and some houses had already been handed over to residents.

He said the City had never evicted anyone. It was important to understand that there was a difference between evictions and the removal of illegal invaders. The actions taken by the officers in removing Bulelani Qolani were condemned by the City, but it would continue to deal with illegal invasions.

Regarding the PHPs, Members needed to familiarise themselves with the National Housing Code, which included a policy on how municipalities needed to deal with PHPs to ensure that the standard was the same across the board. He also explained that the City did not participate in the supply chain level of PHPs, so there was no way of ensuring that women’s organisations would participate in the projects, other than advertising projects.

The City had a database containing some of the information which Mr Hadebe had requested. There were approximately 300 000 people who needed formal housing, and a few TRAs, some of which had been flagged as priority projects.

On the expenditure of the USDG grant this year and last year, he said the Human Settlement directorate had spent more than 95% of the budget, and rollovers had been granted to the directorate by National Treasury.

He said the Somerset West project was part of the integration project, and it had been handed over by the City of Cape Town on 17 July. The Morning Star matter was still under litigation, but a lawyer representing the City was working on a settlement, and a total 166 units would be handed over as soon as the matter was resolved. The reported irregular expenditure on the Morning Star project was false, and the City had used section 33 after the project had reached the three-year cycle.

Mr Rughyubar responded to Mr Hadebe’s questions on informal settlements, and said the City had spent 82% of its USDG grant by 14 June, and the Human Settlement directorate’s expenditure was at 89%. By 17 July, this had increased to just over 93% expenditure. The target of 90% across the city was for all directorates which had been allocated a USDG grant, such as the transport and spatial planning and environment directorates. There were some departments which had fallen behind on expenditure, and they had until 20 July to process outstanding invoices.

Ms Pretorius responded to some of the remaining questions about informal settlements.

She confirmed that there was a total of 39 TRAs of various sizes in the City. The Driftsands projects consisted of three settlements being dealt with at the same time, and because of the duration and complexity of the site, the City had realised that in terms of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), they would have to follow a section 33 process. The City had duly started with the process, but had been unable to hold the public participation process due to COVID-19 restrictions. The process had been delayed and now that the country was on level 3 of the lockdown, the City could proceed with the process. As soon as the supply chain management (SCM) process was concluded, the project would commence.

On the backyarder programme, she said the conditions of backyards were very difficult to navigate through, as there were density issues, and reaching the areas to install services was very difficult. The social environment was also very volatile, and projects were sometimes disrupted by gangster violence.

Follow-up questions

Mr Hendricks said that Councillor Booi had always been an honourable member in the appeals committee, but he was now misleading the Committee on the Masiphumelele issue. He was waiting for the Public Protector to issue and order against the City of Cape Town regarding Masiphumelele after the City had violated the settlement agreement. He was also waiting on the Director of Environmental Enforcement to criminally charge senior officials of the City for the harm which they were causing. He said that the Pedi project was a secretive one, and the site was ready for building houses as infrastructure was already in place.

Ms Mkhaliphi welcomed the invitation of the Mayor, and said she would come with a delegation of the EFF to the Mayor’s office. On the issue of Mr Bulelani Qholani refusing to meet with the Mayor, she suggested that maybe he had been so humiliated that he was unsure if meeting the Mayor would be a good idea.

On the issue of councillors not receiving essential services, she said that on 14 May, a similar concern had been raised and the City’s Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) on health had made a commitment that he was going to look into the matter, and before the meeting there had been a positive feedback received from councillors. She asked for direction on who councillors had to contact in the City regarding the provision of essential services.

She told Mr Booi that in her question on women’s organisations and PHPs, she had been referring to those experienced women who had been engaging with the Department for a very long time. This organisation consisted of very experienced women who only needed tactical skills when it came to building PHPs. Some of the projects which this NGO had undertaken were in Durban

Mr Hadebe asked Mayor Plato to convey his gratitude to Alderman Limberg, who had had assisted in the recent incident of land invasion by four people. He agreed that deliberate land invasion should not be tolerated.

He said that integration meant that the poor and working class people who had to travel daily to work in the city centre, were integrated in areas such as Sea Point and Tafelsig. He referred to a site in Tafelsig and the Somerset Hospital which was currently occupied, and which the City and province were refusing to convert into affordable housing.

He asked for clarity on the housing backlog of 96 078 since 2016 that the City had reported. How was the City going to address this issue.

According to his knowledge, the Woodstock and Salt River project was on hold, while the City had reported that it was not. He asked for clarity on the matter.

Mr Ceza said land expropriation without compensation was directly related to the issue of dispossession in the country, and the disparities that existed were also a result of this.
It was a sell-out position, given the history of dispossession, to speak about land expropriation without compensation on one hand, but also to promote private property. The reason for proposing the custodianship model, where the state was the custodian of land, was so that people did not use their money to win court cases against poor people.

He asked Mr Booi how many unused buildings were owned by the City, and said that these buildings could be used for spatial integration and to bring workers closer to the city centre.

He had not heard the Mayor speaking about building quality housing for people with disabilities. He asked what the plan was to accommodate vulnerable people.

The Chairperson asked the Mayor not to cast aspersions that the Committee was being fed wrong information. She had seen the Plattekloof site and upon her own research, had found that housing prices went from R2.5 million, and the working class could not afford buy in the area.

She said that Mr Hadebe would be asked to verify that indeed the Foreshore development project was under way as the Mayor had said, and asked the Mayor to take the Committee’s input in good faith considering that he was claiming to be committed to addressing apartheid spatial planning problems.

The Committee accepted Councillor Booi’s invitation to see the sites where projects were happening.

City’s response

Councillor Booi responded that the Woodstock site had engineers on site who were doing assessments, as the precinct was earmarked for social housing.

He told Ms Mkhalipi that the City would be launching a new project soon, where they had the Construction Industry Development Board (CIBD) and the NHBRC on board, who would be able to guide and assist organisations to grow and become better entities. The City was doing its level best to ensure that those individuals were assisted.

To Mr Ceza, he said that one of the buildings which was underutilised was Woodstock Hospital. The reason the City was appealing to the Committee to speak to departments such as Public Works was so that more buildings could be released for the City’s use for housing. There was not much land available to the City – the national government was the one that had access to land, so the City had to liaise with national government.

He also clarified that vulnerable groups were being prioritised in the housing projects. These vulnerable groups included elderly and disabled people, and children heading homes.

The Mayor said he would love to engage Mr Hendricks on Masiphumelele and Pedi.

Regarding land invasions, he said that the moment it was made known that the City wanted to transform Somerset Hospital into housing units, there had been invasions, and trying to get people out of the hospital had been another lengthy process. Not addressing land invasions or removing people from Somerset Hospital was not fair to those people who had been patiently waiting on the housing waiting list.

It was also important to understand that with developments, the government also needed to make money, so what the government was doing in certain developments was to ask the developers to pay the highest notch of rates to the City in order for the City to be able to cross subsidise infrastructure and housing programmes.

On the Foreshore project, he clarified that it was the planning of the project which was under way and not the actual development of the site. He also added that in Plattekloof, the developer of the site was non-white.

The Mayor thanked the Chairperson for the invitation to present, and said that the City of Cape Town would be willing to come back at any time the Committee requested.

The Chairperson assured the Mayor that the City of Cape Town had the support of the Committee in the City’s commitment to better the lives of poor people.

The team was excused.

Report of the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs on the 2020/21 Special Adjustment Budgets Of The Departments of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, and The Affected entities Reporting to them
The draft Report was presented to the Committee for adoption.

Mr Hadebe moved the adoption of the Report.

Mr B Luthuli (IFP) seconded the motion.

Ms Mkhaliphi rejected the Report.

Mr C Brink (DA) said the DA was happy to allow the Report to go through to the National Assembly.

The meeting was adjourned.
 

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