October 1, 2004

By Veven Bisetty

The eThekwini Municipality is looking at providing more housing for the poor in the city's central areas to ensure that they lived closer to economic transport opportunities.

Unicity manager Michael Sutcliffe said today that he had tasked his management to look at plans that would treble the population of people living in the central areas to more than 200 000 in the next 10 years, backing a call by the national Minister of Housing Dr Lindiwe Sisulu that the provision of housing opportunities for the poor should be revised to ensure such opportunities were provided in places close to economic opportunity and in areas which usually had high property values.

"My own personal view is that the minister has opened up an important debate which should be broadened away from just the provision of state subsidised housing," Sutcliffe said in a statement.

He said the municipality would be looking at the following:

Treble the population of people living in the Central areas of eThekwini from some 50 000-80 000 to over 200 000 in the next 10 years or so.

Densify neighbourhoods which have good access to transport and economic opportunities.

Explore ways that all private sector housing initiatives are required to build a proportion of subsidised (social/rental) housing for workers who would work on golf estates, clubhouses and the like.
 
Explore ways in which all industrial and commercial areas are required to have a certain proportion of housing opportunities as part of their developments.

"We must promote integrated neighbourhoods and land uses. These are not radical initiatives, but are found in major cities of the world which take sustainability seriously.

"I would far rather poor people save on their high transport costs and have more disposable income to invest in things that matter most: their families, education, food and relaxation. Building a better nation will come from people spending less time queuing and travelling and more time thinking, educating and having fun," Sutcliffe said.

He says it is interesting that the criticism of the minister's suggestion has emerged from precisely the quarters that comfortably lived with apartheid, and consciously or unconsciously supported apartheid.

"These people happily employed full-time domestic servants who brought up their children, cooked their food and allowed them to live comfortably.
Of course, domestic servants lived on these properties in white group areas, but were never allowed to establish homes in such areas."