Address by Executive Mayor, Alderman Patricia
de Lille, at the International Housing Solutions
Conference on 23 February 2012
We need partnerships to eradicate housing
backlog
Minister in the Presidency, Hon. Trevor Manuel,
Chairman of International Housing Solutions (IHS), Mr. Michael Falcone,
Members of the IHS Board,
Investors,
Honoured guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning, goeiedag, molweni.
Providing housing in South Africa is a difficult and complicated issue.
Housing provision, and questions of demand and supply, have at their
heart a strange relationship between our history and the pressures faced
by most developing countries dealing with urbanisation and unequal
distributions of income.
I think if you consider the historical position, one sees entire sections of
society not only cut out of housing provision according to their income
group, but unable to afford private access to housing.
I think that that problem has magnified in certain ways in recent years
because there have not been substantial means to address the demand
side of the equation.
So that bracket has increased.
That is not to say that there have not been important interventions.
The scale of housing delivery in South Africa has delivered a great many
homes to people who have not been able to afford them and, at least for
those families, the benefits of our democracy have been very real.
But there are questions of limitations of resources and capacity at local
level to implement the formulas of the national government.
This is something I believe the whole country is affected by – though
some local governments, such as the City of Cape Town, certainly have
been making strides.
But I do think that our focus as a country has been providing housing to
one aspect of the market.
As much as those who cannot afford houses need them, and there is a
long waiting list, there are also those who are just above this level.
Of course, the need for Gap Housing is possibly one of the more urgent
development pressures we face in South Africa.
This is the function of having an awkward marriage between the
provisions of the private market for those who can afford homes and that
which the State provides for those who cannot.
We don’t have to have this middle-child syndrome in Gap Housing.
Indeed, I do think as our democracy is maturing, the development
priorities in the field of public housing have shifted accordingly.
Where once there was a heavy focus on the provision of free homes,
there has in the past few years been an ever-increasing focus on the need
for Gap Housing.
Indeed, this is represented quite recently by President Zuma in his very
welcome allocation to Gap Housing in his State of the Nation Address.
I think that it has been important for South Africa’s development
perspective historically because it has demonstrated that the State cannot
solve the natural demands of all markets.
But then this raises the question of what the State can do to intervene
because the State does have a role to play.
And I speak here of the State generally as a catch-all term for
governments at all levels in South Africa.
What we have increasingly realised is the principle of partnership which
informs the Gap Housing approach, as practised by the City of Cape
Town.
In the City, we focus on building inclusive communities for people where
there is a definite realisation of opportunity.
So where we have land, we are willing to sell to developers and create
these integrated communities.
Indeed, our densification policy will also assist us to optimally use land
and we intend to use our status as the World Design Capital in 2014 to
accelerate the pace of addressing the impact of Apartheid spatial
development.
That is a benefit for the City’s housing backlog; a benefit for the
developers; a benefit for the housing market; and a benefit, most
importantly, for ordinary people themselves.
In all, it is a balancing intervention to address key gaps in the market
while maintaining the efficiency of that market.
And that is a very different kind of marriage – one that results in
happiness.
But in as much as our governments can start these relationships, we need
partners.
That is why I think organisations like International Housing Solutions play
such an important role and I thank you for your past and future
investment in our region.
They are among the partners that can help us address a definite market
need in South Africa.
And in the City of Cape Town, we are always looking for partners to work
with and are willing to explore this relationship with organisations that
have a proven track-record of producing outcomes.
And we know that IHS can help produce those outcomes given the record
of investment and outcomes delivered in important projects in the
Western Cape.
And it is those kind of outcomes that we want to keep delivering
especially in Cape Town so we appeal for more investment to broaden the
scope of partnership and delivery.
And then, working with each other, we can satisfy the needs of
development in our country and truly help change people’s lives.