Cape Town - The City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee for Human Settlements has welcomed the dismissal of allegations it obstructed the release of Salt River Market land for social housing.
Human Settlements Mayco member Malusi Booi said the dismissal of the allegations had finally laid to rest allegations made by GOOD Party MP Brett Herron.
According to Booi, in a recently released report on the case, acting Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka found Herron’s allegations were unfounded and not supported by facts and applicable legal prescripts.
Booi said: “The City’s Immovable Property Adjudication Committee (IPAC) did not obstruct the release of Salt River Market for housing. In fact, in July 2018, IPAC referred the Salt River Market release matter back to the then Transport Urban Development Authority (TDA) twice.
“Advocate Gcaleka confirmed what we have been saying, that IPAC acted lawfully and referred the report back due to legal compliance deficiencies in the documentation submitted by the TDA, for which Herron was the responsible mayoral committee member at the time.”
Advocated Gcaleka dismissed another of Herron’s allegations – that property valuations of the Salt River site were incorrectly applied at the time, Booi said. He said once legal compliance issues were remedied, the City Council gave in-principle approval for the Salt River Market social housing project in December 2018, and four months later approved the rezoning.
“The record clearly shows that land release milestones followed in steady succession after Herron’s departure in November 2018, and have continued to this day, putting to bed the falsehood that projects were cancelled.”
Booi said although no inner city social housing units reached City Council for approval during Herron’s term, land release gained momentum after his departure in November 2018, with close to 600 inner city units approved.
“A further 1 000 units have already been approved in the last few months, under mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis’ Land Release Priority Programme, and we currently have over 800 social housing units in the construction phase in the Cape Town area. The City currently has more than 6 500 social housing units in the overall pipeline across 50 land parcels city-wide,” he said.
The Salt River Market development has 700 mixed market units, including 216 social housing units. The City said the development would also benefit from capital and operational cross-subsidisation through the inclusion of the open market residential units