Cape Town - Hot on the heels of speculation that the City might have put the breaks on the Salt River Market Site, it has now confirmed that five projects that included affordable housing in Woodstock and Salt River have been stopped.
Chairperson of the Western Cape Property Development Forum (WCPDF) Deon van Zyl said: “From our understanding the City cancelled the Request for Proposals (RFP) process for five projects to prospective bidders.”
He said there was no valid reason given for this.
The five projects included the Woodstock Hospital site, Woodstock Hospital Park, Pickwick Street, New Market Street and where Fruit And Veg City is located in Roeland Street.
“At the time of the City issuing the RFP call, the WCPDF encouraged members to participate in the process and to assist in generating creative thinking on the need for the provision of inclusionary housing,” Van Zyl said.
He said several developers and consultant teams worked tirelessly to come up with innovative solutions.
“All of this work appears, once again, to have fallen on deaf ears
with the cancellation of yet another innovation project.
“It appears the City expects the private sector to step up to the plate every time it issues a call for proposals or tenders, only for the City to fall foul of its own procurement processes, its obsessive audit culture and internal political camp-fighting,” Van Zyl said.
The WCPDF is urgently calling on mayor Dan Plato to investigate.
Former Mayco member for Transport and Urban Development Brett Herron said: “Former mayor Patricia de Lille and I launched the Inner City Affordable Housing project in September 2017. A total of 11 sites were identified for development, and calls for proposals were issued in respect of five.
“The five sites, alone, would have added 4000 social housing rental units to the inner city. It was an unprecedented attempt to mitigate rising unaffordability of accommodation in the inner city, and gentrification.”
Herron said the response from the private sector and private developers was encouraging.
“But from the moment the bids were received my team experienced what can only be described as technical and/or procedural stonewalling by the City and DA leadership,” he said.
Mayco member for Human Settlements Malusi Booi confirmed that City cancelled its RFP.
Plato refuted claims that the City was anti spatial transformation. “We’re committed to integrating our communities. We have internal processes we’re following. All of the City’s affordable housing plans will go ahead,” he said.
@MarvinCharles17