Gauteng has decided to give some home-seekers serviced stands to reduce the massive RDP house backlog.
Do you want a serviced stand, or will you wait for an RDP house?
This is the question the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements will ask prospective beneficiaries as it starts to roll out serviced stands as part of the rapid land-release programme.
MEC Uhuru Moiloa told The Star that beneficiaries would sign binding contracts, and if people failed to build houses within a prescribed period, the stands would be taken away from them and redistributed.
“Unfortunately, if you say that you can build a house for yourself and you are not building it, we are going to have to take that site and give it to someone who can build a house themselves,” Moiloa said.
“It (also) means you must go back to the waiting list for the ordinary RDP houses. We are not building squatter camps, we are basically making it possible for people to stay within the affluent areas,” he said.
Moiloa said the programme was aimed at making serviced sites available to qualifying beneficiaries who will build their own houses, instead of waiting for the government to build them RDP houses.
He said as of 2016, 1.2 million people were on the housing waiting list in Gauteng alone.
“The government is never going to be able to build a house for everybody. Those who can build their own houses must be assisted to build houses for themselves. The rapid land- release programme is exactly about that,” Moiloa said.
He said this policy would allow those who can no longer bear to wait for RDP houses to get serviced stands and build their own homes.
“A total of 100000 serviced sites will be secured after this process. We hope that by the end of the government's term next year, we should have delivered 100000 sites to those who qualify,” Moiloa explained.
The department yesterday started calling people to ask which option they would prefer, and is currently targeting 3500 beneficiaries.
Moiloa said the majority of those at the top of the list were women.
To qualify for a serviced stand one must earn at least R3501. One needed to have one's house plan approved by the municipality, the MEC pointed out.
“Beneficiaries also have to demonstrate within 12 months that they can build their own house,” Moiloa said.
He said the serviced stands would have sewerage, water and “hopefully” electricity.
Various stakeholders were party to the programme and it was all systems go, the MEC announced.
“We have agreed that where we build houses, it must reflect human settlements. It means education must move in, the police must move in, the Health Department must move in, and transport with regard to taxis must move in.
“The MEC responsible for transport and roads must ensure there are roads, so that people must not start fighting over roads in areas which we are initiating and developing. It is integrated planning which my department has initiated, and I think that by working that way we will make progress.
Moiloa said this move would ensure that there was “absolutely no room to justify anyone wanting to occupy land illegally”, adding that illegal land occupation was as a result of “cheap politics”.
“We will have no option but to ensure that the law enforcement agencies do what they must do. They must arrest those people, because it is a criminal offence to occupy any land without due regard for legal processes,” Moiloa said.
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