Kayamandi Fire Victim Housing Plan

I am happy to announce a clear housing plan for the residents of Kayamandi informal settlement, near Stellenbosch in the Western Cape. In the early hours of 15 March 2013, a devastating fire swept through Kayamandi, destroying 1250 shacks and rendering 4500 people homeless.

In response to this terrible tragedy, I have been engaging with the Stellenbosch Municipality and the community to find an immediate solution to the housing need of the victims, along with a way to prevent a repeat of this disaster. The fire spread rapidly due to the high density of shacks and the lack of access roads for emergency vehicles. The caring officials  have worked hard to produce a workable plan, which was presented to the community, and accepted at a public meeting at Kayamandi on 14 April 2013.

Details of the plan are as follows. The area will be upgraded in-situ and superblocks of informal dwellings created, which will allow for the creation of roads in between the blocks. The road will be both a firebreak between the blocks, and will allow fire vehicles to access the settlement in case of fire. Communal basic services will be provided, and there will be incremental servicing of the superblocks to provide services to individual sites.

The project will be implemented in two phases.

• Phase 1: Establishment of formal road network which will also create the superblocks and 8m wide surfaced roads will be constructed to enable ease of access.
• Phase 2: Upgrading of super-blocks  by providing services  to individual erven.

240 families living on land which is needed for the road construction will be decanted to a nearby site, which has been identified and will be serviced in preparation.