Attention on informal settlements
By BHEKI MBANJWA
Durban – The Kennedy Road and Madiba Bottlebrush informal settlements in eThekwini Municipality have been designated priority projects by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Human Settlements.
MEC Ravi Pillay announced yesterday that the two settlements, one in Clare Estate and the other in Chatsworth, had been designated ministerial projects, but the city would be involved in the development.
“Of course this intervention will be in full partnership with eThekwini Municipality.”
Although Pillay did not divulge many details, his undertaking means that the provision of housing for those living in these settlements could be fast-tracked.
The Kennedy Road informal settlement in Clare Estate has been a thorn in the side of the government. Last month, residents at the settlement embarked on a protest demanding to be relocated to the new Cornubia housing development, north of the city.
The chairman of the shack dwellers association, Abahlali BaseMjondolo, Sbu Zikode, was not impressed, saying many promises had been made of fast-tracking development at Kennedy Road.
“We would only welcome the practical implementation of these promises by the MEC. The MEC needs to tell us when and how this would be fast-tracked. The people of Kennedy Road are sick and tired of these empty promises,” he said.
There is concern that at the Kennedy Road site, with some of the land being a landfill, there may not be sufficient space to house all the people living there.
The options may include putting up high-rise, high-density residential buildings.
Pillay, delivering his department’s budget speech at the legislature yesterday, said the existence of slums remained the government’s Achilles heel, especially in eThekwini.
The 2011 census revealed that there were 635 informal settlements across KZN, with 494 of these being in eThekwini.
While there have been concerns about the slow pace of delivery housing in eThekwini, Pillay said he was satisfied the municipality had turned the corner on the matter.
The Department of Human Settlements and the provincial infrastructure team have been working with eThekwini to try to unlock the bottlenecks in the delivery of houses.
“I expect that eThekwini in their new financial year will deliver at least 10 000 units and begin a concerted effort to remove transit camps,” Pillay said.
“In addition, they will have an aggressive programme in respect of interim services such as water, electricity and sanitation.”
Pillay warned that proper planning was needed for cities such as eThekwini because of rapid urbanisation.
Deliver
“Our NDP (National Development Plan) points out that another 7.8 million people will be living in South African cities in 2030 and a further 6 million by 2050, putting pressure on municipalities to deliver services.
“A large portion of new urban residents will be poor, reflecting a phenomenon referred to as the urbanisation of poverty.”
Pillay said that – with its budget of R2.9bn – his department had built more than 26 000 houses in the 2012/13 financial year, the highest number of units built by any province.
Gauteng, with the biggest housing budget of R4bn, had built only 22 000 units.
“Proportionally to budget, we were among the best and far better than Gauteng and the Western Cape.”