Wednesday, February 29, 2012

MEC checks on progress in housing poor

WESTERN Cape Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela visited construction sites yesterday where the province’s new high-density housing projects are being built.

Madikizela took a tour of three sites along the N2 with department officials.

The tour kicked off at the Joe Slovo phase three A construction site, where high density “breaking new ground” housing is being built.

The houses are free to people who earn less than R3,500 a month.

About 2,639 units will be completed this year – the 42m2 two-bedroom units are attached to one another in a double-storey townhouse style with solar geysers.

Project managers said about 1,000 units would be handed over to beneficiaries in the next few weeks.

Later the tour moved to Boystown in Crossroads where protests had halted construction three times since 2002.

The construction company there has now hired people from the surrounding community, said site agent Heinrich Fourie.

The Boystown area will have 1,392 one-storey two-bedroom houses and another 157 houses to be built in the Newrest “triangle” site closer to the N2. These are expected to be completed by March 2014.

Madikizela said he was “glad to see progress”.

The last stop was the new phase five Delft temporary relocation area, which has about 1,100 units made of insulated aluminium and polystyrene. There are enclosed and covered communal toilets and showers.

The City of Cape Town said the housing waiting list was behind by 10 to 20 years because 500,000 people needed houses while the province could deliver only 35,000 houses a year.

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