The City of Cape Town’s failure to release parcels of land was causing major construction delays in the N2 Gateway project, a senior housing official told the portfolio committee for housing on Wednesday.
During an analysis of all pilot housing projects in the country, MPs raised a number of concerns over the lack of progress in the country’s biggest housing project, the R2-billion N2 Gateway project.
“We are unhappy at the state of readiness of pilot projects in the country,” said committee chairperson Zoe Kota.
Responding to concerns, national housing director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said the department has been waiting for about six months for Cape Town mayor Helen Zille and city manager Achmat Ebrahim to sign the land off.
The land has not been released despite an additional R370-million allocation from the national Treasury…
But mayoral spokesman Robert MacDonald said: “It’s not correct that land availability is causing the delay. They are already building anyway. It’s just an excuse for poor planning. There were delays before [the DA] even came into power.”
MacDonald said the flats were three times more expensive than ordinary government-subsidised [RDP] houses.
“They went over budget and there were problems of contractors not being paid and that’s what caused the delays,” MacDonald said. He said stringent Environmental Impact Assessments had also caused delays.
Deputy director-general Ahmedi Vawda said, despite the challenges, the provision of social housing had increased.
“There is definitely a crisis in the city on land availability and the costs. Land [in Cape Town] doesn’t exist for the purpose of low-income housing. But over the last 10 years social housing has risen from two percent to ten percent because of this project,” Vawda said.
In 2006 it was revealed in a mayoral committee meeting that contractors had started work without signed contracts, approved funding and clear guidelines on what was to be built. The City called for a forensic audit of all contracts in relation to the N2 Gateway project. Kotsoane said this was one of the reasons they couldn’t get developers on the land. - Cape Times
During an analysis of all pilot housing projects in the country, MPs raised a number of concerns over the lack of progress in the country’s biggest housing project, the R2-billion N2 Gateway project.
“We are unhappy at the state of readiness of pilot projects in the country,” said committee chairperson Zoe Kota.
Responding to concerns, national housing director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said the department has been waiting for about six months for Cape Town mayor Helen Zille and city manager Achmat Ebrahim to sign the land off.
The land has not been released despite an additional R370-million allocation from the national Treasury…
But mayoral spokesman Robert MacDonald said: “It’s not correct that land availability is causing the delay. They are already building anyway. It’s just an excuse for poor planning. There were delays before [the DA] even came into power.”
MacDonald said the flats were three times more expensive than ordinary government-subsidised [RDP] houses.
“They went over budget and there were problems of contractors not being paid and that’s what caused the delays,” MacDonald said. He said stringent Environmental Impact Assessments had also caused delays.
Deputy director-general Ahmedi Vawda said, despite the challenges, the provision of social housing had increased.
“There is definitely a crisis in the city on land availability and the costs. Land [in Cape Town] doesn’t exist for the purpose of low-income housing. But over the last 10 years social housing has risen from two percent to ten percent because of this project,” Vawda said.
In 2006 it was revealed in a mayoral committee meeting that contractors had started work without signed contracts, approved funding and clear guidelines on what was to be built. The City called for a forensic audit of all contracts in relation to the N2 Gateway project. Kotsoane said this was one of the reasons they couldn’t get developers on the land. - Cape Times
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