Abstract:
According to the Department of Human Settlement Annual Report (2010:5)
accelerating the delivery of housing opportunities by 2014 by providing proper basic
services and land tenure to households currently living in informal settlements, is the
government’s mandate that must be realised. Following this objective, the Western
Cape devised strategies to accelerate housing delivery and service improvement in
the informal areas. For example, an Integrated Human Settlement Plan was developed
to contextualise the City of Cape Town’s strategy for the provision of equitable and
affordable shelter to all, (City of Cape Town Service Delivery Report 2005/6:177).
This plan sparked the development of a City-wide Spatial Development Plan, involving
various role players and integrated planning processes. The Five Year Integrated
Housing Plan, (2007/8 – 2011/12:7) recognises this as it argues that the City of Cape
Town’s objective is accelerating housing provision and ensuring that land utilisation is
well planned, managed and monitored.
To achieve all this on a broader scale, the City has adopted the national Breaking
New Ground plan (BNG) for the development of sustainable human settlements and
has also aligned itself with the Provincial Government’s Western Cape Sustainable
Human Settlement Strategy called ‘Isidima’, (Five Year Integrated Housing Plan, 2007/8
– 2011/12: 7). According to the Five Year Integrated Housing Plan (2007/8 – 2011/12:7),
these two instruments are a shift from traditional approaches to the holistic provision
of housing, with the aim of developing and improving integrated human settlements.
Despite these joint initiatives, it appears that Cape Town is still experiencing a huge
housing backlog. This could be blamed on the failure to plan for migration into the
Western Cape. This article, examines the extent to which the housing intervention
strategies are effective in dealing with the housing dilemma in Cape Town.
