THE City of Cape Town needs about 4,000 hectares of land for housing, and would have to pay about R2 billion for state-owned land which some national departments have refused to release or “unlock” for close to two decades.
One official in the city said 15 years of negotiations with the Department of Defence and Military Veterans to release the Wingfield land had amounted to nothing.
On the amount of land needed by Cape Town, Jens Kuhn, manager for housing land and forward planning, said if 400,000 families were to be housed on plots of 100m2, 4,000 hectares would be needed.
He said the challenge facing authorities was to acquire land for housing when opportunities arose. On the money the city would have to fork out for the land, Kuhn said “simple arithmetic means 4,000 multiplied by R500,000 would equal R2,000m (R2bn)”.
“Price depends on location, year of acquisition, willing sellers, at what price the state land is released. Again, the key is to spend a reasonable proportion of housing funds each yearon raw land to allow for new projects in future years,” he said.
On the Youngsfield and Wingfield land parcels, Kuhn said both sites had been registered with the Housing Development Agency for assistance in “unlocking them” from other state departments (Defence and Public Works).
“Wingfield is about 195ha and Youngsfield is 60ha. In both cases large portions are not usable. But they are well located. As the years go by, and it has been almost two decades now, their land value is pushing the viability of low-cost housing out,” Kuhn said.
The provincial Department of Human Settlements, led by MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, believes high prices for the land are justified and the city has no choice but to pay.
Madikizela’s spokesperson, Bruce Oom, said the city had enough land available to spend its human settlements budget for at least the next three years.
“However, we need to establish a project pipeline for the next five to 10 years, hence the importance of identifying available land now, so that environmental and feasibility assessments can be done well in advance,” Oom said.
He said the Human Settlements Department had, in the past two years, provided funding to the City of Cape Town and other municipalities in the province for the acquisition of land. “The department considers all the city’s applications for provincially owned land favourably if it is in line with the department’s strategic objectives. The Western Cape Department of Human Settlements has made 300ha of land available for human settlement development, but the planning process still needs to commence,” Oom said.
He added that properties owned by national government departments, such as Youngsfield, were suitably located for commercial and residential development for a range of income groups.
“Therefore, the high cost of this land is justified by the opportunity it presents for mixed and high-intensity development. The department has a responsibility to ensure that human settlement developments do not only cater for low-cost housing, but for all economic and social sectors of society,” Oom said.
Housing finance manager Wayne Muller said earlier this week that the availability of land was the main challenge in the Western Cape as land cost more than anywhere else in the country, with one hectare of unserviced land costing, on average, R1m.
- Cape Times
One official in the city said 15 years of negotiations with the Department of Defence and Military Veterans to release the Wingfield land had amounted to nothing.
On the amount of land needed by Cape Town, Jens Kuhn, manager for housing land and forward planning, said if 400,000 families were to be housed on plots of 100m2, 4,000 hectares would be needed.
He said the challenge facing authorities was to acquire land for housing when opportunities arose. On the money the city would have to fork out for the land, Kuhn said “simple arithmetic means 4,000 multiplied by R500,000 would equal R2,000m (R2bn)”.
“Price depends on location, year of acquisition, willing sellers, at what price the state land is released. Again, the key is to spend a reasonable proportion of housing funds each yearon raw land to allow for new projects in future years,” he said.
On the Youngsfield and Wingfield land parcels, Kuhn said both sites had been registered with the Housing Development Agency for assistance in “unlocking them” from other state departments (Defence and Public Works).
“Wingfield is about 195ha and Youngsfield is 60ha. In both cases large portions are not usable. But they are well located. As the years go by, and it has been almost two decades now, their land value is pushing the viability of low-cost housing out,” Kuhn said.
The provincial Department of Human Settlements, led by MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, believes high prices for the land are justified and the city has no choice but to pay.
Madikizela’s spokesperson, Bruce Oom, said the city had enough land available to spend its human settlements budget for at least the next three years.
“However, we need to establish a project pipeline for the next five to 10 years, hence the importance of identifying available land now, so that environmental and feasibility assessments can be done well in advance,” Oom said.
He said the Human Settlements Department had, in the past two years, provided funding to the City of Cape Town and other municipalities in the province for the acquisition of land. “The department considers all the city’s applications for provincially owned land favourably if it is in line with the department’s strategic objectives. The Western Cape Department of Human Settlements has made 300ha of land available for human settlement development, but the planning process still needs to commence,” Oom said.
He added that properties owned by national government departments, such as Youngsfield, were suitably located for commercial and residential development for a range of income groups.
“Therefore, the high cost of this land is justified by the opportunity it presents for mixed and high-intensity development. The department has a responsibility to ensure that human settlement developments do not only cater for low-cost housing, but for all economic and social sectors of society,” Oom said.
Housing finance manager Wayne Muller said earlier this week that the availability of land was the main challenge in the Western Cape as land cost more than anywhere else in the country, with one hectare of unserviced land costing, on average, R1m.
- Cape Times
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