Five die as bad weather bites Cape

At least five people died in a series of shack fires and a rafting tragedy at the weekend.

In the first major cold front this year, temperatures this long weekend plummeted to the low teens with relentless heavy rains and gale-force winds…

Meanwhile, four informal settlement residents were killed in three separate blazes yesterday.

Disaster Risk Management spokesperson Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said the blazes had probably been caused by fires that residents had lit indoors to keep themselves warm.

A man, believed to be about 30, was killed when blazes gutted two shacks in Khayelitsha.

In Bloekombos, a man and woman, between ages 35 and 40, were killed when two shacks burnt down. Another man died in a blaze in the Nonizamo informal settlement. - Cape Times

Project Woebegone

The woes of government’s massive housing flagship, Cape Town’s N2 Gateway, refuse to go away. This week, the United Nations’s special rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, wrapped up a two-week visit to South Africa, saying he found it “distressing” that the R3,1billion scheme was so “chaotic”.

Kothari, who visited South Africa on the government’s invitation, inspected a range of formal and informal settlements in Cape Town. He told the Mail & Guardian he was “surprised at the lack of planning and consultation” in the Gateway project.

Phase one of the project, involving the construction of 705 rental units, was completed almost a year behind schedule, while the construction of bonded houses in phase two has also been delayed. The budget overrun currently stands at about R150-million.

“I found the whole process to be chaotic. It was distressing for me to see that the original beneficiaries of this housing project were moved so far out of the city and ended up not benefiting at all,” Kothari said.

Residents of the Gateway’s rental flats have complained that they have been forced to approach the rental tribunal office over substandard construction work, because government representatives are unavailable.

Kothari agreed: “People are and were simply not consulted by government — this is a critical absence. I also found a large scale of misplaced planning because of a lack of consultation. Residents from every type of community spoke with frustration about the lack of information and access to government.”

His visit came as the Western Cape’s Housing Minister, Richard Dyanti, added his voice to the chorus of criticism. But residents say Dyanti’s visit to the site last week is not sufficient and that they have asked the rental tribunal office to conduct hearings into the housing department’s responsibility for shoddy work.

A month ago, a civil engineer and construction manager showed the M&G major structural defects in Gateway houses, barely six months after the first residents moved into the complex.

Representatives of national Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s office, and the managing director of Thubelisha Homes, the company which manages the complex, then asked tenants to give them a month to fix “all construction problems”… M&G

UN envoy criticises SA’s forced evictions

The United Nations’s chief housing watchdog called on Tuesday for a halt to forced evictions in South Africa, saying people were being left homeless in breach of the country’s Constitution.

“I am calling for a moratorium on evictions across the country until policy is brought in line with constitutional provisions,” Miloon Kothari, the special rapporteur on adequate housing, told reporters.

Despite the fact that the right to adequate housing is enshrined in the Constitution, increasing numbers of people are being removed from dilapidated buildings by the security forces.

“One disturbing phenomenon is forced evictions. People continue to be evicted from their homes, whether in the inner cities, rural areas or on farms in spite of strong legislative protection,” Kothari said at a press conference.

Kothari also indicated that he believe that the government had got its priorities wrong by spending huge sums on staging the 2010 World Cup when it was struggling to provide adequate housing.

Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said earlier this year there was a danger that plans to build hundreds of thousands of new low-cost homes could fall victim to shifting budget demands in the run-up to the tournament.

“It is very odd that countries with high levels of poverty allocate huge sums to sporting events,” said Kothari.

After a two-week visit of South Africa’s cities and rural areas, Kothari said he was shocked by some of the living conditions in Johannesburg’s inner city.

In some cases inhabitants of derelict buildings had to walk down 14 flights of steps to a tap on the street just to get water.

“I have been to many countries where living conditions are very, very poor. What did surprise me is some of the grossly inadequate living conditions in the inner city where there is no regular sanitation.”

Although South Africa’s government has built over 2,4-million houses since the end of apartheid in 1994, many of these were not up to scratch and had not been built with the residents in mind.

Kothari said he had seen houses that were “hastily constructed, poorly planned and designed in the absence of any consultation between local authorities and residents”.

In hundreds of informal settlements spanning the country he was disturbed at the numbers of people living “without basic human dignity”, and said people were being segregated away from urban centres, services and jobs. — Sapa-AFP

Climate change to cost Western Cape billions

Cape Town - The Western Cape is likely to have to fork out billions of rand over the next 20 years to limit and adapt to the effects of climate change.

The Environmental Affairs Department’s director for strategic and environmental management, Mark Gordon, told the Cape Argus on Wednesday that the money would be needed for new power stations, desalination of sea water, new dams, changing crop cycles, finding new export revenue streams and the effects on housing and coastal development of possible rising sea levels.

Other expenses would include sanitation and communicable diseases, he said.

“When it gets warmer there is always the likelihood of more disease, so more money will be spent on healthcare. Introducing other forms of renewable energy will be more costly than the cheaper coals we are using.”

Gordon said that doing nothing would cost more in the long run… - Cape Argus

Shacks won’t disappear overnight

By 2010, there will still be shacks along the N2, says Mayor Helen Zille.

Speaking at the first “business meets the city” symposium on Tuesday, Zille said: “It will take 30 years to deal with the upgrading of informal settlements if we get everything right and spend the money effectively.”

The city has a housing backlog of 400 000 units. More than 135 000 people live in about 250 informal settlements that lack basic services and infrastructure.

‘If we just clean up for 2010, we will be creating more problems than we can solve’

Only 89 of these areas could be upgraded to formal housing developments.

But Zille said, in response to a question about the impression which shacks along the N2 created for tourists, that the relocation of these residents needed to be done in a “prioritised way”.

“If we just clean up for 2010, we will be creating more problems than we can solve.”

She said an unplanned removal of people living in shacks along the N2 and other areas would encourage land invasions and settlements on road and rail reserves.

Zille said the city was working on systems for long-term solutions, such as a database of informal settlements that need services and bulk infrastructure.

Hans Smit, executive director of integrated human settlement services for the city, said some of the informal settlements were located in flood plains or near electricity pylons.

He said settlements that could be upgraded would be added to the city’s integrated housing development programme. But, he added, the upgrading and integration of these settlements would “take some years”.

The city would need at least 500 hectares of land to de-densify informal settlements. The city’s “progressive” informal settlement policy would go to the mayoral committee for comment within the next few weeks.

Zille said the city’s red tape often delayed projects, especially those related to housing and the release of land for industrial development. More needed to be spent on infrastructure, such as the city’s sewerage and wastewater treatment systems, and the upgrading of road and rail links.

Janine Myburgh, president of the Cape Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the supply of electricity was the city’s biggest challenge. “We can expect a decade of power problems.”

She said the city’s electricity supply was also being sabotaged by copper cable theft.

Ian Neilson, mayco member for finance, said the under-spending of the city’s budget was affecting its ability to deliver critical services.

The fact that there was more than R3-billion left in the bank from unused grants and revenue was “embarrassing”.

He said many projects were stalled or scrapped during a period of “budget instability” when money was taken off or shifted elsewhere.

Often, projects were halted because funding from provincial government had not come through.

Zille said the city’s public transport system was a “key” focus for the council.

The city and province are working on a unified metropolitan transport authority and public transport implementation framework ahead of 2010, she said.

A smart card system, such as the one used on London’s tube and bus systems, was being planned for the city’s integrated transport network. - Cape Times

SA told get its housing in order

South Africa is likely to receive a damning report from the United Nations’s special rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, when he ends his tour of the country on Thursday.

On Tuesday Kothari said that although South Africa’s legislation was good and the right to housing was recognised in the constitution, implementation was “very weak” and there was a lack of co-ordination between departments…

He felt people were living in “emergency kinds of situations” because in some cities 40 percent to 50 percent of informal settlements were not serviced.

Kothari was also “disturbed” by the lack of “post-settlement” support available to South Africans who had just received RDP houses or who had benefited from land restitution.

He said the “common trend” was that very little support was given to communities after their land or houses were handed over and that, in most cases, the structures which were built were inadequate, foundations were poor and the walls were cracking.

“A lot of work is necessary to build communities, not just houses,” Kothari said. - Pretoria News

XDR-TB cases in the W Cape

The number of patients needing treatment for extreme drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) in the Western Cape has risen from 21 to 22 as of Monday, on top of three deaths in the past month… Cape Times

Killer TB Toll Rises - Cape Argus

Squatters ready to take Cape council to court

The people living beneath an N7 bridge on Vanguard Drive will have to move if a temporary court order awarded to the City of Cape Town is made final.

The group have been asked to appear in the Goodwood magistrate’s court on June 21 to give their reasons why the order should not be made final.

Members of the disgruntled group met on Sunday to discuss their objections.

‘All of us are prepared to go to court’

A fire in October 2006 razed 70 shacks, killing two men, in the informal settlement under the bridge.

Many of the squatters moved to a Factreton community hall after the blaze, but most of them - complaining about unpleasant conditions and saying they experienced abuse - have since returned.

Kensington community leader Phindile “Jimmy” Xalipi said: “The City of Cape Town didn’t research why those people came back to stay in Acacia Park. All of us are prepared to go to court.”

The group wanted housing and law enforcement officials to be present at the court hearing in June, Xalipi said.

The group were originally given the option of moving to Happy Valley, Delft or Langa, but they refused as their homes under the bridge were closer to their places of work and their children’s schools.

Other options for the group are a disused Maitland school and a development project at Wingfield.

The head of the city’s informal settlement management department, Steven Erasmus, confirmed that a court order had been granted as a precautionary measure.

“Going the legal route is an absolute last resort. We will try to assist them until the last minute. But we cannot allow lawlessness to take place and we can’t be seen acting to be in certain instances and not in others.”

Other alternatives were being looked at, Erasmus said, but he declined to give details. Cape Times

‘Sisulu sabotaging housing deal’

Cosatu’s Western Cape secretary, Tony Ehrenreich, came out with guns blazing on Wednesday against the ANC and the Minister of Housing, Lindiwe Sisulu, accusing her of sabotaging a major land and housing deal struck between landowners and squatters in Hout Bay. Ehrenreich also repeated his controversial call for squatters to invade land to force the government to act.

After years of racial acrimony over housing shortages in the racially divided coastal town, Ehrenreich asked the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) to mediate in discussions between the haves and have-nots in order to find a solution. The IJR launched a peace and mediation strategy at the beginning of March…

Last week, a draft document of principles on the greater Hout Bay housing crisis was finalised in which all parties agreed that removals would take place only after consultation and if acceptable housing was provided elsewhere.

However, Sisulu has now been accused of failing to become involved in the key process of identifying land for potential development. Ehrenreich said the housing department had failed to appear at any meetings.

Sisulu’s spokesperson, Thery Ndopu, denied the allegations, saying the minister had received no invitation to “attend events in Hout Bay”.

Said Ehrenreich this week: “This is an amazing process where the homeless and wealthy, landless blacks and coloureds, white ratepayers and the city council came together and agreed on a set of principles. The only stumbling block is the national government and, specifically, the national housing minister.

“I believe government is trying to sabotage this process. The community needs an integrated response from government and we’ve invited Sisulu to meetings. She even accepted an invitation to attend a Human Rights Day rally in Hout Bay, but she never pitched.”… M&G

Who Benefits From Urban Regeneration?

It’s boom time in Cape Town right now, as the number of foreign tourists visiting the city reaches record levels and houses in desirable locations fetch mind-boggling prices…

But what does the revitalisation of Cape Town really mean for ordinary residents? Already the new residential developments have been criticised for being far too expensive for the average citizen. Certainly the city is being repopulated, but with prices affordable only to the affluent who, moreover, expect their buildings to include on-site parking, swimming pools, gyms and restaurants, these residents will not breathe new life into the city if they remain hermetically sealed into their sanitised high-rise spaces…

But what of the needs of the poor, the unemployed, the homeless?

According to the Western Cape government, Cape Town’s housing backlog verges on close to 400,000 units, while housing projects currently underway only total just over 12,000 houses. With the backlog growing each year and the slow delivery of houses, it will take decades before the need for housing in Cape Town is met.

For example, the much vaunted N2 Gateway Project, which promised to deliver 22,000 housing units by June 2006, has to date only completed 705 - many of which are unaffordable to the homeless and unemployed. For the thousands of people who inhabit Cape Town’s 240 informal settlements, the dream of living in a proper house appears set to remain just that - a dream.

As to whether the many urban regeneration projects in the city will benefit the poor and the unemployed, this too, is debatable, as many of the jobs created (especially with regard to unskilled and semi-skilled workers) in the construction and hospitality industries are short-term or casual jobs which do not offer job security or decent pay… Cape Argus

Residents angry after MEC fails to pitch up

Joe Slovo residents are once again up in arms after they stormed out of a community meeting, to discuss the second phase of the controversial N2 Gateway.

The angry residents walked out of the Langa Sports Complex last night after they found out that Housing MEC Richard Dyantyi would not be attending the meeting.

According to reports residents waited for more than an hour before the announcement was made.

Residents wanted to make their voices heard to the MEC about the problem of adequate housing in the province.

Dyantyi’s spokesperson Vusi Tshose says “the MEC was on his way to the meeting but urgently had to attend a family crisis”.

Tshose added “the meeting would be rescheduled, but a specific date could not be given”.

Last week Dyantyi met with the residents of the N2 gateway where they had the opportunity to list their grievances to the MEC. - Bush Radio

Migration in Cape strains housing backlog

The migration of more than 48 000 people into the Western Cape each year is placing a strain on the province’s already critical housing backlog of 400,000 units, Richard Dyantyi, MEC for Local Government and Housing said.

Most of the people streaming into Cape Town, which has the highest net migration rate in the country, come from the Eastern and Northern Cape.

“We are not going to overcome the backlog unless we address the root causes,” said Dyantyi. “We need to do joint planning and research (with other provinces) to understand the trends,” he said.

Dyantyi will meet the MECs for local government and housing from the Eastern and Northern Cape to discuss strategies to deal with migration on Saturday. This would be the first inter-provincial initiative to deal with migration in the country, he said.

But Dyantyi stressed that influx control and measures to curb the inflow of migrants would not be on the agenda.

“Migration is a universal phenomenon and we are not going to overcome it by building walls. So we are not going to talk about introducing influx control. It will be about getting better strategies to manage it.”

Dyantyi said the three MECs had been in talks since last year. Saturday’s meeting would consolidate these discussions. The aim is for the MECs to sign a memorandum of understanding for a combined migration policy.

“Sharing knowledge is the only way that we can stay on top of this challenge.”

Dyantyi said a migration strategy would complement the Breaking New Ground housing policy introduced by the government in 2004.

“The (housing) framework is ambitious. To address this complex challenge, some radical changes needed to be taken. Too many people continue to live in unspeakably appalling conditions, which dictate that we respond to the challenge of Breaking New Ground speedily and creatively so that the lives of people are drastically improved,” said Dyantyi.

He said migration had advantages and disadvantages.

“Many young people come from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape. They contribute to the economy but when they are old, they go back to the Eastern Cape and ask the government there for a grant. So in fact the Western Cape is also benefiting from the migration.”

He said this interdependence would be considered in the migration strategy.

Migration also affected service delivery, said city manager Achmat Ebrahim.

He told the Cape Town Press Club yesterday that Cape Town has had a sustained population growth of up to 80,000 people a year, “many of whom are desperately poor”. The city had doubled in size in the past 20 years to 3.2-million residents.

Ebrahim said the changes in movement patterns in the past decade exacerbated traffic congestion and increased the need for a transport infrastructure network.

“The structure and form of the city generates enormous amounts of movement at great economic, social and environmental cost to the public purse.”

Ebrahim said this added to the inadequate shelter, overcrowding and indiscriminate development that plagued parts of the city. Cape Times

Cape Town Spatial

As this affects all those who live in Cape Town; Professor Dewar has some words of advice I advise you to read in full.

The desire to promote Cape Town as a “world-class city” is frequently expressed, often as a justification for promoting iconic events and projects, such as the Olympic Games, rugby and soccer World Cups, and “showcase” housing (such as the N2 Gateway Project). But what does the term mean and how close are we to achieving it?

To answer this it is necessary to review how well we have been doing in managing inevitable processes of urbanisation in Cape Town. Africa 2007

The short answer to this question is, not very well at all.

The magnificent natural and heritage legacy of the Western Cape - its greatest assets - are being desecrated daily on the altar of short-term greed and a desire on the part of the (increasing national and international) rich to privatise nature and history’s most desirable assets.

Despite the fact that Cape Town lies in a water scarce region, approximately 95% of water entering the city drains into the sea after having been used only once.

The capacity to deal with sewage has been exceeded in a number of parts of the city to the extent that new development projects, however desirable, can no longer be considered and that untreated sewage is polluting water courses and bodies.

Wide-ranging power cuts, which periodically affect and paralyse large parts of the city, are not uncommon. More seriously, many citizens still have no access to electricity and the alternatives they are forced to use - particularly paraffin - are a primary cause of fire, the scourge of informal settlements.

Despite lip service being paid to it, the public transportation system is a mess and almost nothing is being done about it. Statements claiming that the city will have an integrated public transportation system by 2010 are ludicrous.

The situation has a number of serious implications.

It makes the city dependent on fossil fuels which, internationally, are in a depletion stage: this is the very opposite of sustainability.

It contributes directly to high levels of poverty, since many people who cannot afford to own a car are forced to do so. The alternative, which describes the reality of many people, is that they are trapped and effectively unable to access the opportunities of the city.

Excessive car movement is a primary contributor to serious, and increasing, air pollution.

Existing road networks are deteriorating as backlogs in maintenance build.

The housing backlog, estimated to be between 250 000 and 400 000 units (although no one really knows), is escalating steadily. I do not believe it is the responsibility of central or local government to supply people with housing, but it certainly is their function to facilitate delivery, and this is not occurring at anything like an adequate rate.

As a consequence, the phenomena of informal settlements, which many politicians view as a symptom of under-development, are increasing rapidly.

The quality of the public spatial environment which exists in large parts of the city is appalling. One only has to take a drive across the Cape Flats to see how desperate the situation is. This is an issue of considerable significance…

The causes underpinning this worrying situation are complex. One of the primary ones, however, is the political instability which has faced the city since 1994. The lack of a clear political majority, the waxing and waning of political alliances, and the adoption of the US system of making top officials party political appointments has had a number of negative impacts.

It has created a climate of ongoing asset stripping: a lack of necessary maintenance of existing assets in favour of “sexy” or vote-catching projects.

It has led to an unstable bureaucracy: every time political leadership changes, bureaucratic leadership changes as well. Restructuring has become the norm, not the exception. This has contributed to a climate of uncertainty and to an unwillingness to take control of the problem. The civil service is massively demotivated.

It has contributed to huge problems of human capacity, both quantitative and qualitative.

Qualitatively, there are simply too few professionals and other suitably qualified people, and the public sector finds it increasingly difficult to attract skilled and motivated people in the face of competition from the private sector. This is particularly, although not exclusively, true of black professionals.

Qualitatively, in terms of BEE policies, many people are being promoted to jobs which are beyond their expertise and experience. Paralleling this, people (particularly white people) with skills and experience do not see a future for themselves in the public sector and are either taking early retirement or seeking employment in the private sector.

It leads to fluctuations of decision-makers. This prevents the emergence of a strong institutional culture and a reservoir of experiential knowledge…

If Cape Town wishes to become more competitive internationally (as indeed it must), the path to pursue rests on four pillars:

Bringing stability to the public sector and appointing and retaining skilled and committed people to the right positions. Cities are complex institutions: they cannot be run by amateurs;

Fiercely protecting the natural environmental assets of the city, for these are truly internationally competitive;

Doing the basics of urban management really well: concentrating on making the city more equitable, integrated, sustainable and efficient; and finding innovative, creative ways of meeting the unique challenges of Cape Town. Cape Argus

Residents slam govt houses

Cape Town - It will cost millions of rand to repair structural damage caused by poor workmanship to the N2 Gateway housing project.

Richard Dyantyi, provincial minister of housing, said it was shocking that problems were being experienced at rental units in phase 1 less than a year after construction.

The development was supposed to be the government’s flagship housing project.

Disintegrating floors, cracked walls, leaking toilets and waterpipes were some of the problems residents complained about during a meeting with Dyantyi.

One resident, Nosiviwe Mqweba, said one of the rooms in her flat stood empty because water leaking from the toilet of the flat above hers streamed down the walls. She paid R1 100 rent and felt she was not getting value for her money.

Another resident said she doubted whether the complex would remain standing for 10 years, as cracks were already visible in the walls. “It’s not even winter, but our homes are cold and wet.”

Angry residents said they were not willing to pay rent for homes of such poor quality. They were initially told the rent would be about R650 and were battling to pay the increased amount.

More than 500 complaints about poor construction work have already been lodged with the local residents’ association. Thando Ndabambi, the chairperson, said poor craftmanship was evident in most of the 705 units.

Dyanti said there was already a plan to repair the poor craftmanship. The initial building cost for one rental unit was more than R80 000. Although he was not certain exactly how much the repairs to the complex would cost, it could run into millions.

“Drastic measures will have to be taken to solve the problems. Phase 1 is giving us a lot of problems, but we must learn from it in order to prevent a repeat.”

Thulani Zulu, a representative for Thubelisha Homes, the project manager for the N2 Gateway housing project, said the cost for the repairs must be recovered from the main contractor. A cost survey was being done at present. - Die Burger

Families evicted from new houses

Armed police on Thursday forcibly removed more than 144 families occupying prefabricated houses in Delft, which were erected for victims of the Langa fire that saw the Joe Slovo informal settlement razed in 2005.

At 5.30am on Thursday more than 60 Metro Police descended on the settlement, which has informally become known as Siyahlala, and instructed the illegal residents to move their possessions.

About 20 Metro Police officers were to have stayed at the site overnight, and today the first set of Joe Slovo residents are supposed to move over to the site.

On Thursday shocked residents left standing outside among their furniture said the early morning raid had left them homeless and vulnerable.

A local Sanco member, who would only give her name as Nombuyiselo, said Delft residents who had been living in other people’s backyards had moved into the new houses because they had waited “too long” to get their own houses.

She said the DA had turned the housing crisis into a “political issue” and accused the mayor of not working with the people.

However, other furious residents were blaming the ANC-elected ward councillor, who was absent during the eviction, and the local Sanco committee.

Residents said they had paid money to the councillor and his committee to organise a lawyer to defend them, but they had been evicted anyway.

“How long must I still wait to get my own house? Who is going to give me a place to stay?” said disabled resident and mother of three, Nomphinda Mbabala.

Mbabala said she knew she was occupying the house illegally, but had lost patience with being on the housing list for years and could no longer afford rental.

Other residents were worried about where they would spend the night.

Cynthia Manjezi, a 35-year-old mother of three who is nine months’ pregnant, said she would wait and see what would happen after the evicted group were told they could sleep in a local community hall.

She said she had been a backyard dweller for 14 years and had been paying R300 for rent and R150 for electricity.

“There was no toilet and no water. I couldn’t pay. What else was I supposed to do?”

Manjezi’s husband, Wellington works in Epping but she is unemployed.

Cape Town housing chairman Dan Plato said the City had tried “many times” to prevent “those people” from moving into the houses, but they had occupied them in November 2005… Cape Argus

Low-cost Cape govt homes falling apart

Damp ceilings, cracked walls, bad plumbing and shoddy bricklaying are among the structural defects plaguing the owners of about 2500 low-cost houses across the Cape Peninsula.

Poor workmanship on the part of inexperienced building contractors has been blamed for the defects, the Local Government Research Centre reports in its latest South African Local Government Briefing

The centre says an investigation by the National Home Builder’s Registration Council (NHBRC) revealed widespread evidence of such defects.

According to the council’s executive director of technical services, Jeffrey Mahachi, most of the 2 473 houses inspected late last year — after numerous complaints from homeowners — had structural defects that, if not addressed soon, may pose a serious threat to the lives of thousands of low-income homeowners.

Houses in nine areas — including Guguletu, Manenberg, Mitchells Plain and Philippi — were checked individually, and it was found that 98% of them had defects.

Although most of the houses had only minor structural defects — which would not affect a home’s structural integrity — many of these “affect the habitability of these houses” and some would “end up being structural if not attended to in time”, the registration council reported.

Using a scale of 0% to 100%, with 100% for a house without defects, most of the houses scored between 65% and 70%. In one area, the average was 30%.

The council said it would cost about R20-million to repair homes with major defects and about R15-million for those with minor defects. The total of R35-million is nearly twice the amount spent to build them. This excludes R10-million that has already been spent by the Cape Town municipality in recent years on short-term repairs.

The low-income rental houses were built in 2000 by the Cape Town Community Housing Company (CTCHC), in which the City of Cape Town and the National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC) were equal partners.

The CTCHC has appealed to the city council for a contribution to the R35-million repair bill, the research centre reports.

The centre’s head, Clive Keegan, says a report by the University of Cape Town found that the CTCHC had contravened building regulations. It was also recently reported that the municipality and the NHFC would spend R2,6-million fixing the structural problems.

In May last year, the council approved the appointment of a third social housing company, Communicare, to help it build 5,000 houses by 2008.

Meanwhile, serious defects have also been detected in virtually all of the 705 units completed six months ago as the first phase of the N2 Gateway housing project.

The N2 Gateway — the national flagship pilot project for the government’s comprehensive plan for the creation of sustainable human settlements — was supposed to have provided 22,000 houses by last June, but has so far completed only 705 units, which have proved unaffordable for the potential tenants whom they are meant to house.

The controversy-ridden project has also overrun its initial budget by an estimated R135-million, with units that were originally budgeted to cost R80,000 eventually costing more than R130,000, the centre reports. — I-Net Bridge

‘Shoddy work’ on Cape housing

Cape Town - Poor workmanship on the part of inexperienced building contractors has been blamed for the widespread incidence of structural defects on about 2,500 low cost houses across the Cape Peninsula, the Local Government Research Centre has reported.

The centre - in its SA Local Government Briefing - reported that an investigation by the National Homes Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) had revealed widespread evidence of shoddy brick laying work, poor quality of bricks, damp ceilings, and cracks on the walls as well as bad plumbing.

The registration council’s executive technical services director,Jeffrey Mahachi, said most of the 2 473 houses inspected late last year - after numerous complaints from homeowners - had structural defects which, if not addressed soon, may pose a serious threat to the lives of thousands of low-income homeowners.

The audit covered nine areas, including Gugulethu, Manenberg, Mitchell’s Plain and Philippi, where houses were checked individually and it was found that 98% of them had defects.

‘Defects affect habitability’

Although the majority of the inspected houses had only minor structural defects - defined as a defect that would not affect the structural integrity of a home - most of these “affect the habitability of these houses” and some will “end up being structural if not attended to in time”, the centre reported the registration council as reporting.

Factors that contributed to the defects included soil erosion, poor workmanship and the use of incorrect materials. Using a scale of 0-100%,with 100 for a house without defects, most of the houses scored between 65% and 70%.

In one area, the average was 30%.

R20m to repair

The registration council said it would cost about R20m to repair homes with major defects and about 15 million rand for those with minor defects. The total of R35m represented nearly twice the amount that was spent to build them.

This excluded R10m that had already been spent by the Cape Town municipality in recent years on short-term repairs.

The low-income rental houses were built in 2000 by the Cape Town Community Housing Company (CTCHC), in which the City of Cape Town and the National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC) were equal partners. The CTCHC had appealed to the city council for a contribution to the R35m repair bill, the centre - headed by Alderman Clive Keegan - reported.

‘Building regulations contravened’

Keegan noted that a recent report by the University of Cape Town found that the CTCHC had contravened building regulations.

It was also recently reported that the municipality and the NHFC would spend R2.6m fixing the structural problems, the centre noted.

In May 2006, the council approved the appointment of a third social housing company, Communicare, to help it build 5 000 houses by 2008.

Keegan also noted that it had also been reported that serious defects had been detected in virtually every one of the 705 units which were completed six months ago as the first phase of the N2 Gateway housing project.

N2 Gateway way behind

The N2 Gateway, which is the national flagship pilot project for national government’s Comprehensive Plan for the Creation of Sustainable Human Settlements, was supposed to have provided 22 000 houses by last June, but has so far completed only 705 units - which had proved unaffordable for the potential tenants whom they were meant to house.

The controversy-ridden project had also overrun its initial budget by an estimated R135m, with units that were originally budgeted to cost R80,000 eventually costing in excess of R130,000, the centre reported. - Fin24

Global warming threatens Cape

A library of evidence — including a major new UN report released on Friday — suggests that Africa will suffer more than any other continent from the impact of climate change during the course of the century.

Hundreds of millions of people are set to face severe shortfalls in food and drinkable water in the coming decades throughout the continent but the impact may be most dramatically witnessed on the southernmost tip of the continent.

According to international and local experts, endemic plant kingdoms, fish stocks and unshielded coastal areas are all at risk from rising sea levels in the province where the waters of the Indian and Atlantic oceans collide.

The centuries-old, world-renowned wine region that lies within easy range of Cape Town will migrate towards the east in coming decades as the province becomes warmer and dryer from the north.

Farming in one of the country’s agricultural mainstays would become even harder and food ever scarcer as sparse water resources dry up.

Poor will suffer the most

And the poor will suffer the most as increasingly extreme weather conditions threaten their subsistence livelihoods and encourage diseases like malaria to travel further inland.

“The prospects are dire,” said Katherine Bunney, facilitator of a grouping of global warming activist organisations, the South African Climate Action Network.

“We should be scared enough about the effects of climate change to want to do something about it. It is going to be catastrophic.” …

A 2005 Western Cape climate change report warned of the potential effects of rising sea levels, although the extent was uncertain.

“Higher sea levels will require smaller storm events to overtop existing storm protection measures,” it said.

With less frequent but more severe rainfalls, flooding would also become a bigger threat.

“In Cape Town many of the informal settlements are situated on the Cape Flats where the high water table and inadequate infrastructure makes them particularly vulnerable to flooding,” said the report.

“The cost of not doing anything will be huge,” he stressed.

Stern said he was encouraged that the threat was being taken increasingly seriously worldwide.

“But there is still the question: will we as the world act quickly enough and strongly enough? We will find out in the next year or two”.- AFP

Fires devastate Cape shacklands

Brenda Dingile jolted awake from a deep sleep in the early hours of yesterday morning when she heard voices crying “fire, fire”.

Having already lost her home once to fire, Dingile, 31, moved swiftly, leaping out of bed and, with the help of friends, saving some of her possessions as fierce flames, driven by howling south easterly winds, raced through the De Noon informal settlement where she lives.

The devastating fire was one of four that raged in four informal settlements across the Peninsula late on Friday night, leaving at least 800 people homeless in Khayelitsha, Masiphumelele and Milnerton, where there were two separate fires.

Miraculously, there were no injuries or deaths reported, according to disaster management spokesman Johan Minnie.

Another victim of the De Noon fire was Noneka Dyasi, 25, who lost her livelihood, a sewing machine, which she bought in December and was planning to use to make and sell clothes.

On Saturday, a shocked look on her tired face, she was sitting on a pile of corrugated iron in the mid-day heat, with the burnt-out wreck of the sewing machine next to her.

She was waiting for her children to return with building materials so she could begin the arduous task of rebuilding her home - and her shattered life.

Dyasi said the fire was particularly traumatic for her children.

“They have lost all their books and clothes and won’t be able to go to creche and school,” she said… Cape Argus

800 homeless in four Western Cape fires

More than 800 people were left homeless in four separate fires that gutted informal settlements around Cape Town since last night, Western Cape firefighters said.

About 252 dwellings were destroyed in the fires in Khayelitsha, Fish Hoek and two near Milnerton, said Johan Minnie, a Cape Town disaster management spokesperson. There were no injuries or deaths.

Arrangements were being made to provide accommodation, food, blankets and building materials to those left homeless, said Minnie. The cause of the fires was not known, but gale-force winds buffeting the Cape had helped to spread them.

Yesterday and today had been classified red fire danger days - when there was extreme danger of fires spreading - with high temperatures, strong winds and no rain in a while. - Sapa

Sit-in over poor service

CAPE TOWN — A group of about 50 disgruntled residents of townships around Plettenberg Bay staged a sit-in at the town’s council offices yesterday in a bid to meet Bitou mayor Lulama Mvimbi to air their grievances over nondelivery of services.

The sit-in was organised by a group claiming to be from the SA National Civics Organisation (Sanco), but council officials have dismissed them as members of a rival parallel structure.

The protest is part of the saga of dissension in Plettenberg Bay that has seen accusations of corruption and nepotism in the council.

Phumzile Dalindyebo said the protest was organised to highlight lack of service delivery and housing in areas in KwaNokthula, New Horizon and Bitterdrift. The Democratic Alliance alerted the media to the sit-in, and inquiries were referred to Dalindyebo, who said he was the secretary of the local Sanco branch. He accused Mvimbi of creating parallel structures to sideline the “real” Sanco group in the town.

Dalindyebo, a former council employee who had his contract terminated in December, said his group handed a memorandum to Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka last July at a presidential imbizo attended by Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool and local government MEC Richard Dyantyi. They had not yet received a response… Businessday News Worth Knowing

Municipalities ‘must plan’ for realities of global warming

Unless municipalities plan better, catastrophe awaits Western Cape residents living on floodplains or within the setback line along the coast, a Cape Times report has warned.

Government experts presented research reports on climate change and global warming to the provincial standing committee on development recently. ‘Sea levels will rise and affect the setback line of buildings and developments along the coast,’ said Dipolelo Elford, chief director at the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning.

As temperatures rose, the frequency of floods would increase. Municipalities needed to ensure there was no further development on floodplains and disaster management authorities should prepare for ‘what if’ scenarios, Elford said.

The department’s deputy director for climate change and biodiversity management, Dennis Laidler, said: ‘It’s not just flood lines - it’s energy consumption and all sorts of things. Also, it is not what you do when you have a disaster. A lot is about planning to (avert) a disaster’. Legalbrief

Shack dwellers stuck with their buckets

The bucket system will not be eradicated as long as informal housing persists in Cape Town, city officials say.

This comes in response to the ANC’s request that steps be taken to implement more acceptable systems in areas where buckets continue to be used to remove sewage.

The council’s portfolio committee on utility services heard on monday that until the backlog of around 400 000 houses had been dealt with, the water and sanitation department could not be expected to provide shack dwellers with a better sanitation system.

Utilities executive director Bulumko Msengana said the city was satisfied the bucket system was not being used in any formal housing areas.

“It is not possible to eliminate the bucket system in informal areas because of their nature… It cannot be achieved,” Msengana said.

He said the city could hope to improve the situation only once people were moved to areas that allowed for proper sanitation services.

Director for water services Sipho Mosai said sub-councils had been asked to monitor the maintenance service provided in informal areas where the bucket system was used.

ANC caucus leader Mbulelo Ncedana and chief whip Peter Gabriel brought a motion before the sub-councils in January that the council investigate the scale of the bucket system and the progress made towards meeting the target President Thabo Mbeki set in his State of the Nation address last year - that of eradicating the bucket system by the end of this year.

InternAfrica would like to point out the government are convinced there are only 1200 buckets in use in the WC

Ncedana told the Cape Argus on Monday he accepted it would be difficult to get rid of the bucket system in informal areas, but did not agree it would not be eradicated.

“That’s not the attitude we want. All informal settlements must be upgraded - that’s our responsibility as councillors.”

Ncedana said the council needed to identify land so people subjected to the bucket system could move to areas with better services.

“These people will not live in shacks for ever. As long as officials have a positive attitude and we use land efficiently and effectively, we cannot say we will never resolve the issue.” Cape Argus

The next day in an interview Rashid Khan regional manager of the department of water affairs and forestry said R44-million had been budgeted in the past and current financial years to eradicate the bucket system in the province’s formal housing areas.

“We will be able to meet the presidential target of December for eliminating the bucket system and we’re hoping to meet the (Western Cape) premier’s deadline of September.”

Existing sewerage works would be able to cope easily with the relatively small number of conversions.

Bulldozing the Gateway

InternAfrica urges all Cityzens of the City of Cape Town to read the full M&G Article.

Between the N2 highway and the government’s flagship Gateway housing project, a double-storey shack stands all by itself. Last year Nosandiso Dyonase, who runs a shop from this house, stared down building contractors, government officials, policemen and even bulldozers when they cleared the land around her of shacks and families. A defiant Dyonase and her goats were the only ones left standing.

“Black people are scared of bulldozers because of what the previous government used to do. This government also came with bulldozers and I told them not to touch my shop. I have rights now. I have a lawyer and this is my home and my livelihood and I refuse to be moved to an electricity-less temporary home in Delft, which is far away from Cape Town,” Dyonase said.

“I told those housing people: Bring your bulldozers — I’m not scared. I built this house and this business with my own hands. I live here and I don’t support this government any more. I only support my family and it’s my right to live here because 12 years ago, when I moved here from Langa, I cleared the bushes off this land myself,” she said.

Government’s biggest and most ambitious housing project, the N2 Gateway, is facing a fresh wave of controversy after Dyonase and about 500 other families appointed their own legal representative to oppose what they call government’s “forced removals” of thousands of squatter families to make way for the project…

This week Thubelisha Homes, project managers of the Gateway project, confirmed that construction of phases two and three of this massive 22 000-unit development cannot proceed unless residents and their shacks are moved. The project is already more than a year behind schedule.

National Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu had promised it would be completed nine months ago, but to date only 705 units in phase one have been completed, and phases two and three have not even been started….

The N2 Gateway pilot housing project has been contentious from the outset. Apart from the R135-million budget overrun on the project, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu kicked the DA-led Cape Town city council off the project last year. The ANC and the DA have accused each other of obstructing progress on the project ever since…

A senior councillor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the forensic audit uncovered various instances of “unauthorised payments made to contractors of the N2 Gateway project”. The Auditor General is expected to release his report soon. – M&G

Fire destroys 15 shacks in Cape Town

Between 50 and 60 people have been displaced after a fire destroyed 15 shacks in Langa, Cape Town Fire Control said on Sunday.

Spokesperson Sharon Bosch said the fire in Washington Avenue was first reported at 4.42pm on Sunday afternoon.

There were no injuries.

Bosch said food and blankets would be provided to those affected by Cape Town Disaster Management. - Sapa