South Africa’s lost years

Scenes like the recent violence at the natural heritage site of Hangberg at Hout Bay, Cape Town, when there were attempts to evict squatters from a firebreak are likely to be repeated many times over as South Africa battles to come to grips with the phenomenon of rapid urbanisation.

What was always going to be rapid urbanisation, in a process that goes back at least 40 years, has since the early 1990s mutated into rampant urbanisation as the years of neglect of meeting the challenge with practical, realistic and feasible policies caught up with the country.

In line with what was happening in other developing countries across our continent and in Latin America, South African urban centres from the 1970s increasingly came under pressure of internal migration.

Because the grand apartheid scheme did not accept the right of black people to permanent settlement outside of their ethnically based homelands, no provision was made for the thousands upon thousands who flocked to the urban centres. Squatter communities went up all over the country

In its  initial response the apartheid government physically repatriated people to their homelands by the thousands. They were put on trucks with their belongings and taken back to where they came from.

In most instances they were back squatting within a week or two, drawn to where they knew or perceived the economic and other opportunities were. Areas like Crossroads in Cape Town became notorious, a serious security risk and a huge international embarrassment to the then government of the day.

Making peace with reality

By the mid-1980s the National Party Government, despite the fact that so-called Grand Apartheid was still officially in place, made peace with the reality of rapid, unavoidable urbanisation.

The then Presiden’ts Council (PC) was tasked with working on an urbanisation strategy for South Africa.

The PC’s report found that the process of urbanisation was inevitable and even in some respects desirable as a developmental tool which, among others, tends to lead to smaller families and  higher levels of education. While it was unlikely that the process could be stopped, the only option was to try to manage it.

The tentative processes that were set in motion at the time to deal with this reality and manage the process were then interrupted by the talks and negotiations that led to the political settlement and democratic elections of 1994.

After those first elections came the final constitutional negotiations and the writing of the constitution, after which followed the restructuring of local government.

In the process some momentum had been lost in the process of getting a management handle on the urbanisation process.

The challenge continues

Human Settlements minister Tokyo Sexwale has just announced a strategy to combat the hijacking of buildings, especially in Johannesburg, and in Cape Town the metro council has launched a campaign to give basic services to some 41 000 families living in other people’s backyards.

These are but two of the more recent examples of how the country and especially local authorities are battling to come to grips with the pressures on housing stock from the urbanisation process that has now become rampant.

According to the minister the housing backlog is reflected in 2 700 informal settlements in the country.

Statistics from other sources indicate that the urbanisation process is now  taking place at a much faster rate in South Africa than almost anywhere else in the world. At this stage an estimated 56% of the country’s 50 million people are living in cities and towns.

The urban population in cities is growing at a rate of 3% a year, with growth in smaller towns even faster.

According to a sample survey carried out by Cape Town’s housing directorate, about 41 000 families live in the backyards of council properties. The survey also found that backyard families on average comprise of four people – meaning that at least 164 000  live in the mostly makeshift single-room structures in other people’s backyards.

The levels of poverty that are involved are also illustrated by the fact that the survey found that more than 90% of these households have to survive on incomes of R3 000 or less per month.

Short-term proposals focus on access to basic services such as water, sanitation, electricity and refuse removal. On medium- to longer-term proposals, the issues of  a legal, policy, regulatory, health and management nature come into play.

“Key suggestions include (providing) a wheelie bin (and) black bag … as well as the establishment of area committees in the pilot areas to update communities on progress,” a city spokesperson said.

Some legal obstacles

In Johannesburg Minister. Sexwale’s war on building hijackers might run into  legal problems unless preventive action can be taken.

The City of Johannesburg some months ago had a court judgment against it, instructing it to follow the provisions of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act, which rules that one cannot evict people until alternative accommodation has been found for them.

The minister said he is aware of the judgment and that “the law is a good law, but it is not meant for (building) hijackers. So we want to work with the police and make sure people are evicted from those buildings that are hijacked.”

He added that it was important for judges to sometimes conduct inspections in loco before making a judgment, but he also stressed that his department was behind the courts and needed writs from courts to prevent exploitation by landlords.

In August of last year Mike Greeff of Greeff Properties in Cape Town probably hit the nail on the head when he said:

“Any idea that Cape Town's rapidly increasing urban population will eventually be housed in decent subsidised homes is now unrealistic - no matter how much goodwill and additional funds are allocated in this direction.

"The current situation is that 200,000 extra households are now living in formal housing (or its yards) designed for one family only while another ± 150,000 families are living in informal settlements. The total backlog of formal subsidised housing, therefore, is in the region of some 400,000 homes.

"As the annual supply of subsidised housing (the only housing that the poor can afford) is 6,000 to 8,000 units, the backlog in subsidised formal housing is likely to increase by nearly 20,000 per annum.”

Where, therefore, do the rest of Cape Town's people go? Obviously to informal settlements – and these, said Greeff, have to be accepted by the more affluent sections of the population as part of the solution.