Ten families receive homes with city’s housing project
THIS morning, 10 families woke up in their new two-bedroom homes in Pella Town, Atlantis, after they were handed the keys yesterday by Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille.
The housing project cost R19.6 million and is set to be completed next year, with the City of Cape Town subsidising 180 beneficiaries with homes boasting an open-plan kitchen, dining area and a bathroom.
The beneficiaries are part of a community who have been living at the Pella Mission Station, which is a piece of land formerly owned by the Moravian Church in Atlantis for many decades.
The Pella People’s Housing Process (PHP) is unique because the community were in control of constructing their own homes. Residents appointed their own contractors to build houses.
De Lille said she was delighted to hand over the first batch of keys since the project started two months ago.
“The beneficiaries include the elderly, residents with disabilities and some indigent residents, who had been living on land adjacent to Klein Dassenberg Road for many decades. The property was previously owned by the Moravian Church before pockets of the land were transferred into the names of the beneficiaries by the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development more than 10 years ago.”
The houses are being handed out in phases and the rest of the beneficiaries will move in every month until the project is completed in August 2018.
Contractors are also in the process of completing 10 homes for residents with disabilities. These will have wheelchair ramps, wider doors and modified bathrooms.
“We are delighted to be able to restore dignity to our residents,” De Lille said.
“It gives me great pleasure to hand over the keys to the new homes to the beneficiaries because it has been a journey of decades for many of them.”