Mercury: Eradication of slums could hurt poor

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4065373

Eradication of slums could hurt poor

October 05, 2007 Edition 1

Greg Ardé

KwaZulu-Natal’s Slums Act, which proposes to eradicate shack settlements by 2014, could remove the only opportunity poor people have of gaining a foothold in the property market, an influential think tank heard in Durban yesterday.

The UK government-funded study into the market in informal settlements in three cities in South Africa was conducted by Urban LandMark, whose team was in Durban yesterday to release the findings of its research. 

It studied property transactions in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg, looking at sales in informal settlements, tribal land, shacks and Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) low-cost housing projects. It found that a shack sold for between R50 and R500, and it took up to 69 days and an additional R1 351 in transport and associated costs to secure.

On average, 25% of shacks were sold every five years, the study said.

Sales were driven by issues such as birth, death, marriage, divorce, study and work opportunities, and forced removals. The transactions were dominated by social networks and became available by word of mouth through family and friends.

Guests attending yesterday’s workshop said the research indicated that the government had erred in recently passing the controversial Slums Act in KZN, which called for the complete eradication of shack settlements.

Urban LandMark cautioned the government to think carefully about the housing arrangements that would replace shacks if it eradicated slum settlements.

“They are vital, and any land and housing plan for the city must make place for them. At the same time, poor people need a range of different claims to a variety of land in the city, in addition to shack upgrading and peripherally located RDP units,” Urban LandMark said.

The full study can be downloaded at the Urban LandMark site at http://www.urbanlandmark.org.za/archive.html It is interesting to see that landmark didn’t find evidence of Mabaso’s ‘slumlords’…on the contrary…