Mercury: Low-cost housing upsets residents

Clearly shack dwellers don’t count as ‘residents’ in this article…If they did, and were spoken to, the journalist would soon have discovered all kinds of worries on that side of the fence too….Like the fact that the building of the government shacks is still not complete months after the fire (unlike in Kennedy where people, with City help in getting building materials for the first time, rebuilt themselves in a week) and like the fact that the government shacks are being allocated with shocking party political bias resulting in long standing residents being left homeless while outsiders with the right connections get the government shacks….

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4628124

Low-cost housing upsets residents

September 25, 2008 Edition 1

Kamini Padayachee

Residents of the Durban suburb of Morningside are worried that their properties will be devalued by the construction of low-cost emergency housing near their homes.

The emergency housing is being built at the Jadhu Place informal settlement, which stretches from Overport to Morningside. The eThekwini Municipality began building the tin-roofed dormitory-like buildings last month after thousands of people were left homeless when a fire razed shacks in the settlement in April.

Allan Jaffe, a resident of Enniskillen Crescent, adjacent to the settlement, said residents had not been consulted about the plan to build houses.

“We were never told that they were going to construct houses here. They just moved in with payloaders and started clearing the bush behind the houses. Now they have started building directly behind our houses and have put up no retaining wall. If there is heavy rain our fence is going to be damaged.”

A resident of Lady Bruce Place, near the settlement, said many residents were worried about their property values plummeting.

“Our main concern is the devaluation of the surrounding properties. Some home owners want to sell their properties in the future but we believe we will not get the prices the houses are worth because these low-cost temporary houses have been built here,” said the woman who asked not to be named.

Rochelle Buckner, another resident of Enniskillen Crescent, said she had been at her wits’ end since construction started on the housing last month.

“I did not know what was going on, they just moved in with payloaders and trucks. They have removed sand from behind my house and destabilised my fence. My pool is black from all the sand that has blown into my yard from the construction site.”

eThekwini housing department head Couglan Pather said he could not understand why residents were complaining.

“We have been talking to the ward councillor, so the residents in the area should have been informed about the housing. We had to provide housing because people were homeless after the shack fire. We are not building a new settlement; these people were living in the area. We are just trying to build houses using less flammable materials.”

Pather said the municipality would deal with the complaints received from residents.

“We have received a few complaints from residents and we are addressing them.

We will try to ensure that residents are not inconvenienced,” he said.