Cape Town – The City of Cape Town and major banks are partnering to build affordable houses for people in the middle income group.

Executive Mayor Helen Zille and Councillor Dan Plato, Mayoral Committee Member for Housing, last week hosted a ceremonial handover of well located housing sites to ABSA, Nedbank and Standard Bank for developing affordable houses.

The city and Banks Co-operation Agreement was concluded on 16 May 2006 with the three national banks.

This is the first real operational and tangible partnership between a local authority and the major national banks.

The primary intent of this public/private partnership is to build and develop affordable homes for households earning more than R3 500 per month with a special focus on those earning R3 500 - R7 000 per month.

As a starting point, more than 2 500 affordable housing units will be built in places like Wallacedene, Maitland, Ottery Southfield, Thornton and Elsies River. The selection of the land parcels supports the principles of integration of the city.

Mayor Zille said that the land being released allowed for a range of development timelines from the almost immediate development of affordable housing to 18 months where specific planning requirements existed.

“The land will be transferred directly to the people buying the houses. This will keep the land price down and we will prioritise people who are on our housing lists, meet the income criteria and who have a monthly household income of R3500 and R7000 per month.”

Sipho Mashinini, ABSA’s Managing Executive of Development Company and Real Estate Asset Management Division, said that ABSA had budgeted R2.6 billion to develop a hundred thousand affordable houses.

“In addition to this commitment, ABSA has budgeted R150 million through its Sponsorship Fund to expedite the building of these homes,” Mr Mashinini said.

Manie Annandale, Head of Nedbank Property Finance of Affordable Housing, said that Nedbank’s involvement in the project confirmed its commitment to making finance available to all sectors of society.

“The integrated developments in Wetton, Ottery and Silverton will significantly alleviate the housing shortage in the gap/housing market,” he said.

Aubrey Manganye, Standard Bank’s Director, Integrated Residential Developments, said that the bank had taken a strategic decision to go beyond simply providing housing finance and to do whatever is necessary in delivering housing opportunities to the Financial Services Charter (FSC) target market.

“A focused unit has been established to provide a single entry point into the bank with continuity of engagement to deliver the total solution for integrated human settlements, or developments that focus primarily on the FSC target market.

“The partnership with the city is an example of the many partnerships that we hope to foster in the future,” Mr Manganye said.

The development of affordable housing under the city and Banks Co-operation Agreement is just one of the city’s housing delivery interventions.
Others include the development of social housing, upgrading informal settlements, the development of affordable housing by developers, the developing of subsidy housing, the hostel re-development programme and emergency housing programmes. - BuaNews