A draft policy on inclusive housing is being negotiated between the housing department, commercial property association Sapoa and other stakeholders.

The government’s proposed inclusive housing policy aims to set aside a percentage of new developments for affordable housing. As a result of the negotiations, two approaches have been put forward by the government — a voluntary, proactive deal-driven approach and the town planning-compliant approach.

Housing director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said last week that the government was in favour of using a combination of a voluntary and town planning- compliant approach to inclusionary housing in SA.

Kotsoane said the voluntary approach would generally be applied to state-owned land, and the town planning-compliant approach to private land at the level of rezoning applications with municipalities.

Explaining how the voluntary approach could work when applied to state-owned land, he said the state would set aside prime land for housing developments. This land could come from parastatals and government agencies.

Kotsoane said the department could say to a developer that state-owned land was available for residential development purposes but with the condition that the developer set aside a percentage for low-income housing.

This approach was voluntary because the developer could decide to what extent he wished to transact with the government.

Kotsoane said that as far as the town planning approach to privately owned land was concerned, it would be applied, for instance, when a developer wanted to change the use of land from business to residential.

“If a developer seeks to have his own land rezoned from one use to the other, he will have to show to the municipality that the application for the change of land use is intended to have the effect of inclusionary housing.

“We are having discussions with stakeholders for possible incentives for developers in the implementation of the inclusionary housing programme.”

He said the incentives would vary and that the treasury would have to be brought on board to implement them. These could take the form of tax benefits, for instance.

Kotsoane said the inclusionary housing policy was “on the last draft now” and was about to be finalised. He said the policy would be presented to Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and housing MECs this week.

“If they agree with the policy, we will then take it to cabinet.”

Kotsoane said that Sisulu and the MECs might wish to make amendments or changes.

“But we expect that by the end of June the policy would have been finalised.”

He said the department also wanted to have a draft bill published for public consultation. Kotsoane said the inclusionary housing policy would have far- reaching implications in terms of municipal by-laws, integrated development plans and provincial ordinances.

Kotsoane said the department wanted to have a “piece of legislation to emanate from the policy” to allow municipalities to implement the policy appropriately.

Kotsoane said the government had long since moved away from the idea of having a fixed percentage of a new development set aside for inclusionary housing. He said the percentage that was set aside could be anything from 1%-30%.

What the actual percentage for each new development was would be left to the municipalities and the developers to negotiate, he said.

Neil Gopal, CEO of Sapoa, said that about a year ago the government had been adamant about having a fixed percentage of 20% or 30% set aside for inclusionary housing.

“Through our negotiations and open dialogue with the government we welcome the fact that the housing department has taken a more flexible approach to the policy.”

Gopal said the department should be “commended for taking into consideration the private sector view”.