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Cape Town community in limbo over housing project
KHAYELITSHA - A Cape Town community has become entangled in red tape between the city and provincial housing department.
Two people died in a shack fire on Sunday.
They were survivors of the 2018 blaze that razed over 300 homes.
They had been waiting to finally be relocated to emergency development in Khayelitsha.
Something that’s been five years – and waiting.
In accounting for who’s responsible for the delay, both the City of Cape Town and provincial housing department are playing the blame game.
The area earmarked for emergency development in Khayelitsha following a 2018 fire stands abandoned.
For five years the families from this settlement have waited to be relocated.
Then, on Sunday, another fire swept through the same area, claiming two lives - Nomthintelo Cele and her partner Siphiwe Siyolo.
Nozabalunge Cele says she was woken up by screams from neighbours informing her that her niece’s shack was on fire.
Cele is now looking after fifteen people in her small shack and says they're struggling to make ends meet.
She explained, “Nomthintelo has three children and they were all dependent on her even though she was unemployed. So now that she has passed, it's very hard for us. She didn’t have funeral cover and we’re struggling.”
This site for their relocation was identified through a special plea by former housing minister Nomaindia Mfeketho for victims from the Blowie informal settlement.
Ward councilor Thando Pimpi says the delays are intentional.
Pimp said, "this is the third fire and it’s the same area that was hit. And, it’s the people that were meant to benefit from the site we’re standing on. I think the Western Cape government must acknowledge the disaster happening here. This project was approved a while ago but it’s now politics at play.”
The Khayelitsha Development Forum wants the City to be accountable.
Khayelitsha Development Forum's Ndithini Tyhido said, "she survived the first fire, she was put into the list to wait for an emergency house, a second fire occurs in 2023 and she dies."
"If things are to be different the city of cape town must take accountability for those deaths. The provincial housing department will to their benefit provide that they were ready to go onsite as early as 2020.”
But the City says power of attorney was granted to the provincial housing department.
Tyhalibongo said, "this approval is order to develop a temporary relocation area which will provide approximately 770 residential units in three story blocks to accommodate transitionary households in permanent accommodation, the rezoning and subdivision application was approved on 6 April 2020.”
The provincial housing department says the current agreement has limitations and its waiting for land use approval from the city.
But it can’t say when work will commence.
Western Cape director of Professional and Project Management Services' Sandile Gqoboka said, “we must have the land availability agreement for us to start the construction. And the thing is as part of the billing plans, it’s part of the documents that we must have, we must have a proof that the land belongs to you, if the land does not belong to you the owner of the land must give you a consent for you to build.”
While its unclear when work will finally start here and talks between the two spheres of government drag on, residents say they fear more people will die before receiving their homes.