Still no clarity from Minister De Lille about which land parcels were released

An entire week has passed since I stated that neither the Western Cape Government (WCG) nor the Western Cape Housing Development Agency (HDA) has received 5 parcels of land from the National Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI).

This was in response to a media statement that was issued by the National Minister of DPWI, Patricia De Lille, stating: “I have approved the release of 5 parcels of land for human settlements purposes in the Western Cape alone.”

To date, we have still not received any formal communication from the DPWI regarding these 5 parcels of land.

It is critical that Minister De Lille clarify to the people of the Western Cape which parcels have been released, where they’re located and what the potential human settlement yield is. We cannot have irresponsible utterances that are devoid of the truth to continue circulating in our communities.

Minister De Lille has a responsibility to set the record straight, as it is unbecoming of a public representative to mislead the public in this manner.

I also once again point out that it is important that when land is released and or transferred that the Power of Attorney (PoA) must be provided. Should the PoA not be available, a third party is unable to commence with statutory processes such as Water Use License Assessments (WULA), Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and town planning or any other statutory processes on the owner’s land, while the transfer has not been concluded.

We’ve been lodging formal requests for the DPWI to release a number of identified land parcels which it owns within the City of Cape Town since 2017, but this request has fallen on deaf ears. Instead of being silent, I’d like to urge  Minister De Lille to release well located land, just as she advocated whilst Mayor of Cape Town. 

The number of properties requested from DPWI stands at 18. Two erven at IThemba has formally and outright been declined. The requested properties are located at Bo-Kaap, Camps Bay, Parow, Rugby, Simons Town, Tamboerskloof and Zeekoevlei, Delft & Weltevreden. They have a combined extent of approximately 30ha and an estimated yield of 3500 units.

This excludes other tracts of well-located land such as Culemborg, Ysterplaat, Wingfield, Denel and Youngsfield. It’s been estimated in the past that this could potentially yield approximately 93 000 housing opportunities.

In non-Metro areas, 34 land parcels have been identified by the local authorities. The properties are located in Wellington, Paarl, Grabouw, Saldanha, Vredenburg, De Doorns, Kylemore, Vlottenburg, Franschoek, La Motte, Wilderness Heights and Blanco, George. The properties have a combined extent of approximately 6600 ha and it is acknowledged that in some instances the entire property will not be developed hence an estimated development yield of only 6800 units. 

In the Western Cape, between 2009 to date, a total of approximately 360 ha of land in the ownership of the WCG has been availed for residential development purposes. This will over time yield 18 782 housing opportunities. These parcels across the province are in Ithemba, Penhill, Khayelitsha, Eersteriver, Blue Downs, Kuilsriver, Belhar, Mitchells Plain, Charlesville, Paarl and George.

Against a target of 219 664 during 2009 – 2019, the Western Cape created 231 090 housing opportunities.

We have a housing backlog of close to 600 000 in this Province and Minister De Lille’s continued failure to release land for human settlement purposes and to issue the POA to the HDA as per the National Cabinet resolution, causes further delays in addressing the housing needs of our residents. The people of this province should ask Minister De Lille why she’s conducting herself in this manner, particularly since she’s denying law-abiding citizens the opportunity to improve their lives.

>I’d also like to once again propose to Minister De Lille to embrace an intergovernmental co-operative spirit in her dealings with other spheres of government, so that the needs of our people can be addressed.

As the Western Cape Government, we remain committed to accelerating human settlement delivery, utilising technology, while promoting social inclusion through the development of integrated, resilient, safe and sustainable human settlements in an open society.