Johannesburg - The City of Johannesburg’s Housing MMC, Mlungisi Mabaso, is on a mission to tackle housing segregation across the city.
This comes after Mabaso turned the sod for the Long Street Social Housing project to officially start the construction of a R1.6 billion social housing project led by Johannesburg Social Housing Company (Joshco).
The city’s project is aimed at responding to the need for decent and affordable residential units in the inner city.
The development is located at Extension 38, along the mining belt on Main Road in Jeppestown. The housing stock will consist of one-bedroom and two-bedroom communal rental units.
This will entail the construction of 1 336 units of four-storey walk-up blocks to accommodate mixed-income households with gross income ranging from R3 500 to R15 000 per household a month.
Mabaso said this development in Jeppestown was the beginning of a new era. “It gives me a great pleasure to be among you today to officiate the beginning of what will go down in history as a mega project that was initiated in my time.”
Mabaso said the objective of such projects was to address housing demand and promote the establishment of well-managed, quality rental options.
“The development in Jeppestown is part of the city’s turnkey projects, which aim to address the lack of affordable housing in the city. This is our humble contribution to the people of Johannesburg and changing people’s lives for the better.”
Mabaso pleaded with residents to own and protect such projects, saying this was a massive breakthrough for residents in the city.
“With this kind of investment, we are projecting that thousands of job opportunities will be created and, in this project, alone a minimum of R67m will be set aside for local small, medium and micro enterprises.”
The MMC said other areas within the city had been identified and would also benefit from the R1.6bn set aside for mega projects.
“We will continue to launch affordable Social Housing Projects of this nature, even in the upmarket communities, as we are going to launch other mega projects in other parts of the city.”
Mabaso identified Rivonia, Sandton, Diepsloot and Midrand as the next destinations for the mega projects.
He emphasised that the days of segregating people by their economic status were slowly coming to an end.
Joshco is further expected to launch its first student accommodation project with 193 beds. The housing company’s aim is to help eradicate the housing backlog among the city’s low-income earners. It has a housing stock of more than 6 800 units in its portfolio.
The Star