28 November 2007
A thousand families who used to live in shacks in Joe Slovo will spend
Christmas in brand new two-bedroom homes in Delft. And more than another
thousand families will join them shortly after New Year. The first batch of
completed 1 000 Delft Symphony homes will be handed over to their new owners by
Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu on Sunday.
As the families move into their new homes, new arrivals from informal
settlements fill the spaces in Temporary Relocation Areas (TRAs) to wait their
turn. We are gathering momentum, said Director-General of the national
Department of Housing, Itumeleng Kotsoane.
The N2 Gateway development cycle involves people moving from shacks to
temporary relocation areas, to permanent homes. The faster we move people
through the temporary relocation areas, the faster we eradicate informal
settlements. Because some of the remaining residents of the informal settlement
at Joe Slovo have proved unwilling to relocate, the new generation of TRA
residents include families from other informal settlements, including New
Rest.
Contractors need access to land presently occupied by shack dwellers in
order to build homes. Occupants of Temporary Relocation Areas will be offered
access to new homes as soon as they are built, on any of the N2 Gateway
building sites between District Six and Delft. Prince Xhanti Sigcawu, general
manager of the N2 Gateway Pilot Project for state-owned developer, Thubelisha,
said a total of 4 224 Breaking New Ground (BNG) homes were under construction
in Delft Symphony. These homes are given free to families qualifying for the
full housing subsidy.
An additional 2 000 rental and affordable bonded units for people who do not
qualify for the full subsidy are slated for the area known as Delft three to
five. Money generated by selling portions of land to private sector development
partners is used to cross-subsidise the building of bigger and better quality
free (BNG) homes. In this way, instead of having to build homes with just the
R38 000 subsidy, assets worth R55 000 could now be given away free.
Sigcawu said work on another 4 000+ BNG homes got underway in Delft seven to
nine last month. Together, these different typology of houses (i.e. rental,
affordable and fully subsidised), would create integrated communities. New
homes are also sprouting in New Rest, between Gugulethu and the N2 Freeway,
where male volunteers from the community have been building after being
challenged to contribute by Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu during Women's
Month. Women's Build 2007 contributed 26 homes in 16 days; the men are working
to complete 67 homes in a month, for handover to beneficiaries on Monday.
Because proper homes take up more space than shacks the families who will
not benefit from new homes in New Rest are moving to temporary accommodation in
Delft to wait their turn. The 1 000 Home Handover Ceremony takes place in Delft
Symphony on Sunday 2 December 2007, from 11am.
For more information please call:
Ndivhuwo Mabaya
Department of Housing
Cell: 083 645 7838
Prince Sigcawu
Cell: 082 883 9739
Issued by: Department of Housing
28 November 2007
Source: SAPA
