More and more informal dwellings are being built as backyard properties and not in informal settlements, the SA Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) said on Tuesday.
According to a SAIRR report, between 1996 and 2007, the total number of households residing in informal dwellings grew by 24,2 percent from 1,45 million to 1,80 million.
During that period, the number of households living in backyard informal dwellings rose by 46 percent from 403 000 to 590 000.
The number of households living in free-standing informal dwellings grew by 16 percent in comparison, from just over one million to 1,2 million.
At the same time, backyard informal structures as a proportion of total informal dwellings grew by 18 percent while those built in informal settlements declined by seven percent.
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The ratio of informal dwellings built on bare land (which might be privately owned or belong to the state) to those built in backyards declined from 1:2,7 in 1996 to 1:2 in 2007.
The institute identified a few reasons for the changing pattern in the erection of informal dwellings.
The first explanation had to do with the safety concerns of residents of these dwellings.
"Informal settlements built in backyard properties are less vulnerable to vandals and shack fires that are so prevalent in informal settlements," said SAIRR researcher Kerwin Lebone.
"Also, a person urgently looking for rental accommodation would encounter fewer obstacles when building a shack on private property than would be the case when they approached the department of housing, where they were likely to be subjected to a long waiting list."
In 2007, the banking sector established that low-cost housing was delivered at a slow pace owing to delays by local authorities in providing and proclaiming suitable land, installing infrastructure, and establishing services.
The institute said the fact that more Africans owned formal housing in 2007 meant they could lease out portions of their stands to tenants who wanted to build informal structures.
The advantages for prospective tenants included access to the landlord's water and sanitation infrastructure.
Potential problems could arise when the small scale landlords wished to supply electricity to their tenants.
This might entail a breach of the law through illegal connections and added pressure on the country's ailing electricity grid.
The institute said the department's policy of eradicating "all slums, or informal settlements, by 2014" might also have played a role in the displacement of informal-dwelling-erection patterns.
"Shack dwellers might assume that erecting a structure in a backyard property renders them immune to the evictions that are characteristic of most informal settlements deemed by government to have been established illegally," Lebone said. - Sapa
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