SA Affordable Housing September / October 2018 // Issue: 72 | Page 30

HOUSING MATTERS
overcome in the case of the Salt River Market site . It is a struggle to find the patience for the time it takes to get a viable development right . The patience has effectively run out – that much is clear in the work of parties as diverse as Ndifuna Ukwazi and the Municipal Planning Tribunal .
When it does come right , a door will be opened for the transformation of Cape Town . As the City and the province commit to making their inner city land available for the development of social rental and navigate and negotiate the politics , bureaucracies , legalities , procedures and the public to get there , the Salt River Market redevelopment project is in the lead and perhaps , practically speaking , the only real project on the table at this point in time .
Communicare has put its shoulder to the grindstone and currently is confident that it can build over 750 rental units on the site . More than 30 % of these units will be social rental units , 275 units to be precise . More than 80 will be for households that earn less than R5 500 a month . The balance of the flats to rent in the open market will still be affordable in Cape Town terms , with the highest rent being R15 000 a month . Importantly , from the outside , the presence of an established player in providing truly affordable housing in the inner-city area is enormously important and very exciting . As city planners we hope this has a catalytic effect in terms of landing spatially transformative development in the inner city .
Over R1-billion needs to be invested to make this possible , which will come from Communicare , commercial banks and various tiers of government . What is more important however is that we get 750 housing opportunities that are available to lower and middle-income households in perpetuity ! This point is one that is often lost when we talk about the expense of building and running well located housing for poorer households .
What is exciting is that the benefits of this development are not limited to housing . Communicare ’ s proposals suggest bringing in high quality , safe public space for everyone and neighbourhood shopping alongside this space – both formal and informal trading spaces . Some of the development will retreat to widen the infamous Bromwell Street into an open street for walking , cycling , parking and driving .
The public realm will draw people one level up to an outdoor / indoor resource hub for tenants and broader neighbourhood residents alike . This space will be a place of safety , learning and opportunity . These kind of promises often fall by the wayside as developers struggle to get the numbers to stack up . Communicare is not depending on earning an income from this space to make it work .
What is now on the table is more than what we city planners could dare to have hoped for . It is well located , integrated housing delivery at a density that we have not seen as yet , in Cape Town , in the post-apartheid era . It is the form of development we have no choice but to embrace if a safe , convenient , affordable public transport system is going to be a reality in Cape Town . Perhaps most importantly , the viability of the plan on the table , I am told , is solid . For private developers out there , the yield of this scheme is sitting at 8.24 %, with an internal rate of return of 16 %. This starts to demonstrate a model that might be replicable on state land more widely . The import of this point to shifting the modes of sustainable affordable housing delivery in South Africa cannot to be under estimated .
But … the Salt River market redevelopment project still has to be built , and that will not be before the middle of next year . To get there , and further , will require tenacity , dogged commitment and collaboration between the City of Cape Town , Communicare and the community of Salt River , for the good of all Capetonians – who should rally behind making this happen . Enough of the legal wrangling , enough of the policy dilemmas , enough objections . Let ’ s build !
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SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2018