Housing needs are key
SOMETHING very interesting is happening in Joe Slovo and Du Noon: a number of multi-room dwellings are rising up with half a dozen or more satellite dishes being erected on each double-storey building, cheek by jowl. Such is the demand for rooms that landlords can demand up to R2 000 per room in rental.
Joe Slovo is changing by the hour and – alarmingly – becoming very chaotic. Structures are springing up on every inch of available land. Even the pavements are being occupied. One down-onhis-luck white man has also found refuge there.
Refuse continues to be strewn in many places and serially piles up in other places. Last year several trucks had to clear a vast accumulation of garbage in and around a number of informal kitchens selling food to residents.
Health problems will be exacerbated and the danger of a fire breaking out is going to escalate to a frightening level. Many people will not be able to get out to safety because of the extreme density of shacks and houses. Fire engines will have no prospect of getting to fires inside any of these over-settled areas.
If the problem is not tackled expeditiously it will have no prospect of being tamed thereafter. It will become a flashpoint and remain as such for the future.
The landlords who have begun to transform their single-story units into long, double-storey blocks are providing a viable solution. The city must, with alacrity, use whatever land it has to build or encourage the private sector in every which way it can to build sectional title units on the Danish co-housing principle. This will allow young people a hand-up in respect of property ownership and also permit safe living at a reasonable cost.
By expeditiously accommodating all those who can secure and service reasonable loans the city will be able to provide the safety valve that is needed.
A bottom-up approach is the choice approach in respect of politics. Cape Town house prices are jetting up and up and while the upper end of the housing market is booming, much more will need to be done to accommodate first-time buyers to ease the pent-up housing pressure.
Joe Slovo and Du Noon and other such places need the intervention of experts and of community leaders.
From my perspective the fuse has been lit and an explosion cannot be far off.
FAROUK CASSIM Century View