Cape Town invites public participation into its affordable housing aspirations

The Cape Town City Council has given the go ahead for the public participation process to begin concerning the construction of more than 700 social housing units within the city’s central business district and other urban centres in the metro.

Member of the Mayoral Committee for Human Settlements, Malusi Booi, says the proposed Newmarket Street land release in central Cape Town includes about 165 social housing units, adding that Pickwick property in Salt River comprises of a 1800-unit development, 600 of which will be social housing units.

“We currently have more than 6500 social housing units planed across 50 tracts of land in the metro.” Booi remarks, adding that 2 000 of these are located in the central Cape Town area, and a further 2 500, of them along the Voortrekker Road Corridor and near important economic points, have entered the construction phase or are close to it.

Councillor Booi goes on to say, “This is an exciting time for us. Our plans of building Cape Town together are coming along and there is a will and great desire for real action and delivery, despite the heavy regulatory environment that we are operating under. The City is doing everything in its power to expedite processes.”

Today, City’s Human Settlements Directorate officials visited the R101 million Sir Lowry’s Pass Village housing project to check on its progress. The project is expected to provide 307 housing opportunities for qualifying beneficiaries.

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— City of Cape Town (@CityofCT) May 23, 2022

Affordable housing a major priority for the City

In April the City of Cape Town hosted its first Affordable Housing Indaba and announced the launch of its Land Release Programme for More Affordable Housing which aims to unlock and drive the potential for a large-scale public-private sector social housing programme.

At the event it was stated by Booi that Cape Town’s population grew by 56% to more than 4.3-million residents between 1996 and 2016. As such, the City estimates that approximately 500 000 housing opportunities need to be created between now and 2028 in order to accommodate projected growth, as well as to manage the existing housing demand.

According to the City the 4 focus areas of the programme are:

1. Fluid and rapid pipeline of land release for social housing.
2. Identifying large mixed-use sites for private-sector development.
3. Unlocking massive potential of micro-developers.
4. Developing an environment enabling the acceleration of land release.

For more information and to apply for social housing in Cape Town:
https://www.capetown.gov.za/City-Connect/Apply/City-housing-and-properties/Housing-opportunities/Apply-for-social-housing