Hangberg: A question of land denied

Reading about the recent demolition of shacks by the City of Cape Town in Hangberg and the comments made by the City on the issue could leave one thinking that newcomers have illegally occupied land.

However, this is a clash between longstanding residents of the community, their children and grandchildren who have grown desperate with an authority that consistently applies temporary solutions to significant problems.

In the 1940s the first state housing was provided for workers near the Hout Bay harbour to ensure a supply of cheap labour for the fishing industry. As the industry expanded and the population grew, a shortage of housing developed. The municipality later allowed residents to occupy land behind the council flats on condition that they not erect permanent structures. This was an ad-hoc solution applied by the local authority to a growing problem in Hangberg.

This piece-meal approach, whether a result of the lack of planning or as part of a deliberate strategy to prevent poor people’s access to good land for housing, is the trigger for many informal settlement and backyard dwellers’ struggles, as is illustrated in the case of the Hangberg community.

As with most South African cities and towns, there are two worlds operating in Hout Bay; the world of the rich and the world of the poor. Wealthy South Africans have the resources to meet their housing and land needs through participating and transacting in a vigorous property market. This property market, however, excludes the poor by making property prohibitively expensive and beyond the reach of people with lower incomes.

National and local authorities have done nothing to address this market failure and there is no legal systematic way to, within a reasonable timeframe, obtain land or adequate housing if your council flat becomes too small for your family. Instead poor people are expected to tolerate dismal living conditions and tenure insecurity while they spend decades, often lifetimes on waiting lists.

Between 2007 and 2008 Development Action Group (DAG) provided intensive support to the Hangberg community, building the capacity of community members to form a project steering committee to lobby the City to upgrade the informal settlement.

Although the City approved an in-situ upgrade project, it has made slow progress. Unlike many other informal settlements where influx from rural areas causes expansion, Hangberg is a cohesive community with the primary reason for expansion being natural population growth. These are families who have always lived in Hangberg and who have, over generations, built the local economy with their skills and labour. Understandably, they want to see a housing development that allows them to remain within the Hout Bay community.

The upgrade project is sowing division among families in the community as the City of Cape Town expects the community to prevent any expansion of the settlement while the project continues experiencing bureaucratic delays. Undoubtedly settlement encroachment onto the firebreak of the slopes of the Sentinel does pose a disaster risk. This aside, the informal structures demolished last week were the community’s attempt to address natural population growth. It is also their response to the authority’s failure to implement an acceptable solution to their housing needs.

In taking a ‘tough stance’ the premier and mayor informed Hangberg residents that the City would withdraw from the project if community members continued to build illegally. The City does not have the option of withdrawing and reneging on the principles of ‘developmental local government’ - nor can it deal with citizens in a paternalistic manner.

The City of Cape Town has not produced a plan for low cost housing development in Hout Bay other than the upgrade project, which will meet only a fraction of the housing need. Small-scale projects such as the Hangberg upgrade must be accompanied by an overall plan to address the housing needs in Hout Bay. In the absence of such a comprehensive housing plan, there is little security for the people of Hout Bay, whether rich or poor.

The City’s actions beg the question of whether it has the necessary will to address the divides between rich and poor in Hout Bay. At the moment the City is maintaining the status quo by keeping the poor out of certain areas where land is available. The conflict between residents and the police in Hangberg is unsettling for all, rich and poor alike.

Internationally it has been demonstrated that wealthy citizens would gladly subsidise low-income housing, through taxes, if they are assure that their taxes will deliver decent housing to the poor. The law makes provision for such taxation through declaring special rating areas, but the City has failed to use it in this way, demonstrating a lack of will to solve this problem.

Communities like Hangberg, therefore, have two options. The first option is to settle for living in informal housing in order to be near to work opportunities, their support systems and to public facilities such as schools and hospitals; the second option is to live in an ‘RDP house’ which is generally only available by relocating to the edge of the city in places like Delft or Happy Valley, far from economic activity, public facilities and amenities.

Instead of developing a comprehensive long-term plan for housing development for the entire municipality which addresses both current and future housing needs of all Cape Town’s citizens, the City of Cape Town’s approach to low cost housing continues creating dormitory townships. The Organisation for Economic cooperation and Development (OECD) drew attention to this trend in its recent regional review of Cape Town, which found that land use and planning regulations hamper housing delivery in Cape Town and that land use planning continues to be shaped by apartheid practices with cheap parcels of land on the urban edge, far from economic opportunities still being used for low-cost housing. This is a simplistic response to a complex problem and a response which creates further problems for the City and Western Cape Province to provide expensive new infrastructure and to make social services available. The City’s built environment and land use policies have failed to create accessible and affordable neighbourhoods and resulted in a highly segregated, sprawling city that cuts off economic opportunities from the poor.

Poor families are only able to sustain their livelihoods because of their close proximity to jobs, social networks, transport and other opportunities that a city offers. Location is therefore critical for poor families’ survival strategies in cities. Many will even give up access to basic services like water, electricity and sanitation to be closer to jobs and social networks that provide emotional, physical and financial support.

Unfortunately in South Africa well-located land is inaccessible to poor families because of its cost, which is driven-up by market forces and unregulated by the state. To improve their location poor people live in informal settlements, rent rooms or backyards. These are often expensive options but is evidence of poor people making rational choices when faced with the option of living on the city’s periphery with no prospect of economic opportunities and where the costs of public transport exceeds income.

Frequently the state sells off well-located land and buildings while it continues to locate poor people in housing on the urban periphery. The gap between rich and poor is exacerbated when existing inner city land is developed for town houses and luxury apartments or yet another mall is built for the rich and the middle class. DAG is concerned with the state’s failure to recognise the social value of land, especially scarce urban land as its use can promote either social and economic inclusion
or exclusion.

Why do people have to be relocated to the periphery when well-located inner city land lies vacant, unused, underused or misused? The City argues that the land is just too expensive and that they don’t have the budget to purchase land but this argument addresses the complex forces of the market place rather simplistically. South Africa is not the first country - and Cape Town is not the first city to be faced with the challenges of gaining access to land and housing for low income earners. Informed by best practice of similar cities internationally DAG has consistently promoted the following proposals to the City of Cape Town:

* An overall City or Metro wide settlement plan encapsulating a medium to long-term vision is required and which is developed with the input of all the City’s citizens.
* An immediate action is needed to develop a local area plan for the greater Hout Bay area which will encapsulate a medium to long-term vision for the area. The key to this approach is recognition of the high levels of inequality in our city regarding access to opportunities. The Hangberg in situ upgrade should be incorporated in such an overall plan for the greater Hout Bay area.
* Such a plan should take advantage of all that is permissible under the law, such as the special rating area as provided for in the Municipal Property Rates Act. For example the City of Cape Town should introduce special rating areas in precincts like Hout Bay to increase revenues for land assembly and housing development for low-income earners in the area.
* The use of development levies, a common international practice where the City could recoup the cost of infrastructure provision which is then redistributed to finance affordable housing on well located land. The current practice is that the City is giving away public assets in the form of land, infrastructure provision and development rights with very little return for the greater public good. This is all done in the name of development and pursuit of a world class city which benefits only a few.
* The introduction of a tax on vacant land as is being done in Johannesburg and Durban, which will increase much needed revenues for the City and help to curb soaring land prices by bringing more land onto the market.
* Zoning regulations. For example, inclusive housing can be used to bring about the best use of urban land and encourage low-income or mixed income housing development. Again this will require political will from the City to get more value from the sale or lease of public land.
* Another strategy for increasing municipal revenue and regulate land-use proactively is through the lease of public land instead of selling it off to developers. This allows for far greater negotiations with developers in terms of the best use of land;
* The densification and optimal use of land are key principles that must be incorporated into land management practice in Cape Town. This can be realised by the development of housing for people of mixed-incomes on in-fill land and other land parcels where higher densities would be environmentally, economically and socially sustainable. This is only implemented to a limited extent in South Africa at present and achieving this at a greater scale will require active engagement by affected citizens.

These proposals should be implemented using a participatory approach to governance where citizens are informed, allowed to share in decision-making and implementation and where the authorities operate with transparency. DAG believes such a democratic, participatory approach to managing urban areas in South Africa will facilitate social inclusion and greater equity amongst all citizens.

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* Ardiel Soeker is the programme director at the Development Action Group and Kailash Bhana is the chief executive officer.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.