August 19, 2004
By Lucky Sindane
THE City of Johannesburg has approved a consolidated list of 189 informal settlements and housing projects around the city, the first step towards achieving its target of formalising informal settlements within the next three years.
In his 2004 State of the City address, Johannesburg executive mayor Amos Masondo said all informal settlements, or the establishment of new townships where this was impossible, should be provided with essential facilities such as access roads, streetlights and community centres by 2007.
The consolidated list includes all known informal settlements - from a small camp with six shacks in Zondi to camps with 10 000 shacks like that of Diepsloot.
Some of the informal settlements, most of which were established in the early 1990s, are on private land and some on public land.
"Some informal settlements can be developed where they are, but some, like Thembalihle, can't. You have to relocate people because it's on public land," explained the City's director for housing, Uhuru Nene.
"If we have a larger number of people we try to look for another site. The City identifies suitable land to establish a township. We then relocate people and make sure that it has all the basic services," said City spokesperson, Nthatisi Modingoane.
Nene added that many informal settlement dwellers had resisted moving, and a solution had to be found.
Modingoane said the City was in the process of addressing another potential problem in terms of allocating adequate housing: "All the regions are busy with an audit and we are visiting all the shacks around the city. We need to know how many people live in one shack because it may be home to more than one family."
The audit will allow the City to assess the scale of the challenge facing the City and make appropriate plans, said Modingoane.
"In some areas such as Dhlamini, Soweto, the project is almost complete. We are now in the process of formalising the Nomzamo informal settlement," added Modingoane.
Other City housing projects taking place include Diepsloot, Ivory Park, Cosmo City, Zandspruit, Dobsonville, Doornkop, Tshepisong, Alexandra, Orange Farm, Kliptown and Vlakfontein.
"In three years time all the informal settlements will be formalised - that's what the mayor wants," a committed Nene reiterated.
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