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Recently, the City of Johannesburg Council approved a resolution to make 71 City-owned properties available to create affordable social housing within the Inner City through public-private partnerships.
This recent development is in addition to 13 other properties which were made available for the same purpose late last year.
The announcement, made by Mayor Herman Mashaba, was in response to the City’s housing backlog. According to current estimates, approximately 30 000 housing units are across the City to meet the desperate demand for housing within the City.
While bidding processes are yet to resume, Mashaba highlighted oversight preconditions to ensure unscrupulous developers don’t benefit at the expense of the City and its residents. To mitigate this risk, buildings will be provided on a long-term lease basis to ensure that the buildings are developed and that rentals cater to low income households.
As part of the City’s approach to meeting the housing crisis head-on, is the willingness to alongside the private sector so as to turn the City of Johannesburg into a construction site which also generate artisan job opportunities for residents.
But it’s not only about building houses, the City also aims to build safe and connected communities across the City.
Speaking about the need to root out crime to improve residents’ livelihoods, Mayor Mashaba said the City is taking “all possible steps to determine the identity of the true owners of hijacked buildings in order to begin the process of reclaiming these spaces. Where owners cannot be identified, the City will look to expropriate these buildings so to utilize them for housing development.
We are also investing heavily in building a properly capacitated JMPD which can patrol our streets and assist in law enforcement efforts which keep our communities safe. Already, 1500 JMPD officers are undergoing training for this purpose.”
