City sprawl is responsible for current water crisis
FROM expropriation without compensation (EWC) to the ineptitude and mismanagement of the water crisis, we seem to be in a constant state of flux.
Professor Ben Cousins (UWC: Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies), stated on Wednesday, March 7’s SAFM after 8 debate that the need for farmland in developed provinces was a moot point, as while this was relevant in 1955, today what is needed is affordable housing in the inner city and inner suburbs, considering the links between the apartheid city, manifested in the sprawling Cape Flats and the water crisis.
On the 20th anniversary of our democracy, my Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance op-ed “Apartheid spatial planning still highly prevalent in our city” (Cape Times, April 27, 2014), called for the reversing of apartheid spatial planning via affordable housing, using international examples.
Berlin requires 55% affordable housing before development approval is granted, with London requiring 50%, while New York has strong laws protecting social housing tenants.
By comparison, while Mayor Patricia de Lille promised affordable housing for the Foreshore, only 12.3% of the 3 650 units planned were reserved for this. Professor Vanessa Watson (UCT: School of Architecture) called the 450 units miniscule, and said they made no impact on spatial segregation in the city, while a competing bid offered 4 000 affordable units in the inner city (the CBD and a 10km radius).
While urban sprawl has been fingered as a contributor towards droughts and climate change, we find the City announcing a “huge luxury housing development in Kuilsriver” with more than 4 000 units on 71 hectares (of which 17.677ha is owned by the City), while in Delft the City plans 1 000 houses.
The City’s “Introducing the Economic Areas Management Programme” shows that it’s 2 461km² geographical area is a driver of inflationary pressures in the City Budget.
Bulk water and sewerage reticulation of 20 000km is difficult to maintain; expanding this infrastructure increases risks of more leaks and maintenance costs.
The need is for affordable inner city and inner suburb (along the M4 main road running from central Cape Town through to southern suburbs) housing, to mitigate against sprawl and water shortages.
The City supported the sprawl-inducing Kuilsriver development, due to a projected increase in rates of R26 million, but the 2018 State of the Province address showed that our sprawl-inducing drought will cost us at least R6 billion worth of water infrastructure.
International research shows initial capital costs and operating costs of sprawling developments outweigh the costs associated with inner-city redevelopment with a 50% cost differential reported, where the provisioning of water and sewerage infrastructure is cited as an expensive infrastructure requirement.
Also, the Financial and Fiscal Commission’s 2011 study estimates that a large city like Cape Town could save R9bn a year in recurrent public transport expenditure if it was more compact.
While media reports quoted Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson on February 28 saying that those claiming Day Zero would not happen were irresponsible, as we needed to bring consumption down to 450 million litres a day, two weeks later Mmusi Maimane claimed that Day Zero had been defeated at 526 million litres a day – unless we don’t get enough winter rain.
In response to this ill-considered announcement, we have now seen water usage shoot up to an average of 565 million litres a day, with Neilson stating on March 14 that Day Zero will happen on August 27 if we don’t receive winter rains.
At the GCTCA 2017 annual general meeting, Dr Kevin Winter (geological and environmental scientist) revealed that rainfall predictions had become increasingly unreliable due to climate change.
Meanwhile, Cape Peninsula University of Technology long ago started building on Moravian Church in South Africa land they usurped in District 6, while the City has allowed commercial creep onto District 6, where only about 40% of the original land is left.
It is not clear if CPUT believes renaming their Cape Town Campus the District 6 Campus now precludes them from giving back the historically disadvantaged congregation’s land that was used for social/affordable housing during the colonial and apartheid eras, or is this what government means by expropriation without compensation?
It has been some time since the initial call for the reversal of apartheid spatial planning via inner city affordable housing, where using the example of Berlin and London seems far less controversial than EWC. Taking Professor Cousins’ statements, together with the UN’s 2008 report recommendations on SA cities, if we had started reversing the apartheid city in 2008/9, it seems we might not even be having the EWC conversation and possibly experiencing the water crisis at this stage.
Whatever occurs, certainly the next few years will be very interesting, where many who claimed to be anti-apartheid activists will be exposed for being only against the excesses of apartheid and colonialism, seen in the resistance to Ndifuna Ukwazi’s attempts to build a more inclusive Cape Town, even in the face of links between the apartheid city and the water crisis.
September is Chair: Steering Committee, Forum of Cape Flats Civics.