Solve the city’s property puzzle
WHILE Cape Town’s property developments are weathering the storms of political uncertainty and ratings downgrades, there seems to be little appetite from property investors to break with the city’s apartheid spatial planning.
Reading the Cape Town Central Improvement District’s “State of the City” report gives an insight into developments in Cape Town’s CBD.
To date, projects worth just more than R1 billion have been completed, and those currently under construction are worth R3.5bn.
Unfortunately most of these developments are either hotels, commercial office space or highend luxury flats.
But consider this, approximately 150 000 people work in and around the Cape Town CBD, yet there’s only accommodation to house 7 000 people.
Right now the cheapest rental one could get for studio flat in the CBD is just over R7 000 a month. A two-bedroom flat can cost close to R30 000. These rentals mean that the inner city housing market remains closed off for most Capetonians.
Cape Town might be a world-class city for some, but most workers travel into the city centre on dangerous taxis and crumbling Metrorail infrastructure that is always subject to delays.
The obvious choice for the development of affordable, high-density housing remains District Six, but plans for the area are in limbo over unresolved restitution claims.
The Western Cape government, hoping to deflect criticism over their decision to sell the Tafelberg site, offered the Woodstock Hospital and Somerset Hospital sites for development and cross-subsidisation of affordable housing.
Any developments on those two sites will take years to come to fruition, never mind that there are generous tax incentives to lure developers.
That’s why we agree with chairperson of the Western Cape Property Developers Forum Deon van Zyl that developers should work with government on developing feasible models for sustainable housing.
As he rightly points out, failure by property developers to accommodate affordable housing in their plans could see government step in and force the industry’s hand.