Houses for Marselle
Two RDP projects in the pipeline, meeting told
Marselle community members are anxiously anticipating the rollout of RDP housing in their area, with an update given recently by Ward 3 councillor Boniswa James on two projects that are in the pipeline.
This transpired during a big turnout of community members at a quarterly meeting presented by James at the community hall in Marselle last week.
Among those present were Ward 8 councillor Thembani Mazana, Ndlambe Municipality housing manager Olwethu Jobela and community stakeholders.
Two housing projects were announced at the meeting. First on the agenda was a housing project that will kick off towards the end of the year. Known as the 269 project; the tender has already gone out. A total of 29 houses are to be built immediately.
The second project is for 500 units to be built in New Rest in Marselle.
Beneficiaries of these houses have been living in shacks for almost 10 years, and have been badly affected by rainy weather the past couple of weeks.
Jobela said the project was in what they called the pre-planning stage. Engineers were almost done with their report, now in its final phase, but the water crisis in Marselle was a problem that would stand in the way of the project.
“We had a meeting with the MEC [for human settlements] recently and we mentioned the water crisis problem and another idea was proposed which was to rather build rural houses, where people won’t have toilets inside, but they will be built outside. These houses will have water tanks at the back, but the final decision depends on the beneficiaries of the houses,” Jobela said.
He added that rural housing had its advantages and disadvantages, and they needed to meet alone with the beneficiaries to explain everything to them.
Another meeting will be held today (Thursday) with the beneficiaries to come up with a permanent solution, whether people agree to have rural houses, or if they would rather wait for the water problem to be solved.
“The rural houses won’t waste a lot of water during the construction phase of the project – it will help us save water. Another thing that must be highlighted is that if we go ahead and build houses with toilets inside, chances are that people won’t have water coming out of their taps,” Jobela added.
Other matters of concern mentioned in the meeting were the installation of streets lights in the community and the paving of roads.
James said the budget for paving was finished for this financial year and it would resume in the next financial year. The project will continue until 2020. James also urged residents to refrain from illegal dumping following complaints from the municipality.
‘The rural houses won’t waste a lot of water during the construction phase of the project’