‘Local developers need to overcome fear around affordable housing’

“There are developers in Johannesburg and Pretoria who have already found the business opportunity in affordable accommodation. Western Cape developers stand to lose out if we do not educate ourselves on this opportunity.”

Van Zyl said it should particularly be noted that affordable accommodation is not charity.

“It’s a business opportunity, just like student housing became an opportunity when universities could not provide sufficient accommodation,” he said.

“When affordable accommodation is able to net prices of around R200/m² and you place these figures before developers, suddenly the penny begins to drop.

“There will be teething problems, but is our industry not about risk and reward in any case?”

Van Zyl said the property industry in the Western Cape had not moved much closer to understanding the differences between affordable accommodation and low-cost housing.

He said the industry in this region was also not clear about the opportunities available to developers in this market.

“We still feel threatened by the misconception of small boxes on small erven, a concept that property economist Professor Francois Viruly calls the 40x40x40 concept – a 40m² house situated 40kms from work and with transport costing up to 40% of a household’s income.

“Can we really afford not to use strategically located state- owned land for affordable accommodation?

“In other words, for the creation of accommodation for people who are active in the economy, but who cannot pay market prices?”

Tasso Evangelinos, CEO of the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) and also an attendee at the conference, echoed Van Zyl’s commendation of the city’s proposed Foreshore Freeway Precinct project, which could see thousands of affordable units incorporated into its design.

“The project is the first public-private partnership put on the table to create affordable options in the CBD. With the amount of government land, from municipal to national government level, that currently still exists in and directly bordering onto the CBD, we hope this will be the first development of its kind and that others will follow.”

Van Zyl felt it was time for Cape Town to step up its game in terms of the global trend towards what downtowns abroad referred to as nano units: apartments often no larger than small bachelor flats with community-shared facilities such as kitchens, dining rooms and rec- reational areas.

CCID chairperson Rob Kane said it was essential for the Cape Town Central City to be recognised as a forward-thinking downtown.

“Johannesburg already sits in 16th place out of 55 cities on the YouthfulCities index – a global index founded by consultancy firm Decord, in terms of affordability – and is the most affordable of all the sub-Saharan African cities on the index,” said Kane.

“We join the call for developers to investigate properly and engage with affordable accommodation initiatives as viable opportunities in terms of global developmental trends,” he concluded.

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