City residents promised better housing conditions

 In the City Council Meeting, Cape Town Mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis also tackled infrastructure issues, whereby he announced that the municipality, over the past five years, invested R4,1 billion in water infrastructure and building water security,

The Mayor said that city officials should strive for a better governance. This is after the city of cape town stated that it was devoted on delivering more housing opportunities. Earlier this year the city launched the affordable housing priority programme, to position the state as an enabler of far greater private sector housing delivery.

“ Our priority programme has four pillars:

Cutting red tape to enable the private sector to deliver faster;

Enabling micro-developers to deliver more rental units;

Giving people title deeds and clearing historical backlogs; and

Finally, speeding up the release of municipal land for social housing “.

Hill-lewis said that only people who are longstanding tenants in council houses will get title deeds. He also said that tenants who live in the council-owned flats will unfortunately not benefit from this project in this first tranche. The city is in process of issuing 1,500 title deeds, and the first lot will be complete by June next year, as the city is currently focusing on at least 7500 units. 

“To enable this policy change, we are today seeking Council approval for the City to: Approach the provincial government to remove the regulatory provision that forces beneficiaries to settle outstanding debts on a property before ownership can be transferred; Fund the full payment of transfer fees on behalf of beneficiaries, and to fix these fees at R2 500 regardless of the property value.

We are also not giving up on the Woodstock Hospital precinct, where around 700 social housing units have been delayed by the orchestrated building hi-jackings of March 2017. The City is committed to doing everything possible to get this social housing project back on track through the correct legal channels ", said Hill-lewis.

The mayor reiterated that council members were on a mission to make Cape Town a secure place, despite all the evidence of decay in South Africa. 

by Everngelista Muza