Mashaba’s inner-city plan ‘criminalising the poor’
● Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba wants the private sector to redevelop the inner city, which he hopes it will do “at no cost to the municipality”.
But his choice has not been popular with activists and scholars, who believe it will jeopardise the city’s poorest residents.
The director of litigation at the Socio-Economic Rights Institute, Nomazamo Zondo, said the city had been reluctant to accept its obligation to house the inner-city poor.
Zondo said Mashaba’s decision to expropriate hijacked, abandoned and derelict buildings “tells us the plan will leave many poor people displaced”.
“The city has gone out to criminalise the poor,” said Zondo.
“The focus is more about aesthetics. We want to feel like we live in a world-class African city, but we don’t want [poor] people to live in a world-class African city.”
The move is part of Mashaba’s plan to make Joburg safe and habitable.
It includes Operation #BuyaMthetho (bring back the law), which the city said collected about R50-million in revenue through “raid” initiatives that enforced bylaws.
So far no buildings have been expropriated but 18 buildings once occupied unlawfully have gone to tender to be redeveloped. Among the criteria are jobs created, housing units developed and cheap rents (between R500 and R1 000 a month).
Margot Rubin, a city planning researcher at Wits University, said Mashaba’s plan had shortcomings. “I see little provision or consideration for how extremely low-income earners, and those in the informal sector, will be able to access good-quality accommodation and services.”
The director of architecture and urban design firm Local Studios, Thomas Chapman, said it made sense for the private sector to develop affordable housing.
“There is a shortage of skills in the public sector to do it in a lean, mean and efficient way,” he said.
Greg Vermaak, an attorney whose law firm represents inner-city property owners, said many owners of “bad” buildings had applied for eviction orders.
“[These applications] can’t be finalised because of the inability of the local government to provide temporary emergency accommodation to those occupiers who face homelessness,” Vermaak said.
“It would be inappropriate for the city, having failed to fulfil its obligations to these occupiers and owners, to then purport to ‘punish’ the owners through expropriation.”
Mashaba said people living in properties earmarked to be redeveloped would be moved to “decanting facilities”.
“Those who are South African citizens and have not benefited from the subsidised housing programme will be put on the housing waiting list to get an RDP house.”