In response to public criticism of proposed changes to the Municipal Planning By-Law, mayoral committee member for spatial planning Eddie Andrews said, "The cost per square metre in areas like Rondebosch and Constantia prevented the private sector from meeting the objectives of delivering affordable housing opportunities".
Andrews' statement shows the City's cop-out and contradiction regarding affordable housing, and that the by-law is a transparent ruse to give developers carte blanche under their "red-carpet" policy. It also reveals their inherent dishonesty about these changes despite outwardly having good intentions.
It's common cause South African urban centres are spatially sparse. But one cannot change the status quo, as Prof. Ivan Turok who was approached for comment (Incidentally, he lives in a sparse province and city - Free State) and Andrews suggest, with blanket densification without upsetting the extant spatial, social and environmental order. It's like trying to drastically shape a tree that for decades was allowed to grow in a certain way. It cannot be done unless the whole or parts of it is destroyed.
The purpose of land use and planning laws are to regulate orderly development. The opposite of that, even at a micro level where regulations are not observed, eg illegal structures (which, ironically, the proposal wants to stringently punish), are spatial disorder and social and environmental conflict. Informal settlements, which the city removes in CBDs, are examples of spatial, and often, social disorder.
This is what the city includes with its proposing planning changes: building "affordable rental flats on residential plots without needing to seek land-use approval". It intends formalising what it's already doing: easily approving land-use and planning waivers. Examples abound, infamously, River Club.
Andrews is disingenuous when he says areas like Rondebosch, etc are not conducive to affordable housing because of the cost of land. The city is selling land, in cases at discount which seems legally irregular, in middle class Lansdowne, Rondebosch East, Mowbray Golf Course etc to developers for so-called affordable aka social housing. Planning approval bids always promise it, including at upmarket locations like River Club, but never materialise.
But Andrews, city and developers will not say what units will cost, to rent or buy. The fact is they won't be cheap, even to the middle class. For example, in Lansdowne where the city is selling land for "affordable housing [sic]”, flats are selling upwards from around R800,000, with an average nearer R1 million (Property 24). To whom is this affordable? Not to households with income of R15,000 a month, the defined group.
While the cost of land is a major factor in development, the city has no control of the high cost of construction, capital (borrowing and investments) and developers' required rate of return (profit). Also, new build is more costly than old build because the latter's construction cost - low then - has been amortized over the building's lifespan, leaving its residual and plot value.
Affordable housing is the smoke and mirrors poorly hiding the city's intention to make Cape Town a "construction zone".
Development is always contentious, especially in Cape Town Metro which already is compact for a city of five million people, complicated by its awkward (for development) geographical features. But this is why we and many migrants live here, which this administration can't get: its unique and beautiful features that's the antithesis of featureless, concreted over Gauteng.
The city has a history of bad approvals. Now a big element of the by-law wants to shoe horn once-size-fits-all development across diverse communities. I'm not sure why, except to benefit developers, because the city already approves developments case-by-case, often ignoring credible objections.
Together with the affordable housing ruse, the city and its planning portfolio are dishonest to citizens and confused. This happens a lot with them.
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