GOOD candidate for the Cape Town Council, Joy Davids, plans to resume the struggle to develop affordable housing, unstitch the Group Areas Act, and create a model community in which all residents feel secure and at home.
The struggle that former Cape Town Mayor Patricia De Lille and Mayco member Brett Herron led to develop affordable homes in the city and adjacent suburbs, on land owned by the State, ultimately led to their resignations from the City and establishement of the GOOD Party.
Davids is standing for GOOD in the Ward 115 by-election on 9 December. Ward 115 is among the most diverse in Cape Town, incorporating parts of Salt River, Woodstock, the central business and Moullie Point.
The ward includes most of the 12 sites that De Lille and Herron were in the process of releasing for the development of social housing, including the land presently occupied by Fruit and Veg City at the top of Roeland Street, and the old Woodstock Hospital.
After De Lille and Herron resigned, the City cancelled the process.
They flushed the plans to develop 4000 homes affordable to teachers, members of the police, young professionals – even better-paid domestic workers – down the drain.
People qualifying for state-subsidised affordable homes must earn between R3 500 and R18 000 per month.
The City has done its best to exploit existing property owners’ fears about integration, and drive a gentrification agenda, instead of trumpeting the benefits of developing a modern and sustainable post-apartheid society, Davids said.
“For a start, we’re talking about affordable housing and not low-cost housing.
We are talking about accommodation for young professionals who don’t earn high enough salaries to presently be able to buy property anywhere close to town.
“We’re talking about the economic and social costs of continuing to maintain apartheid spatial planning by expanding the outskirts of the city.”
Instead of instilling fear in residents about property values, a city that cared for all its citizens would inform them of research from Canada, the USA and Europe showing that property prices generally increased when vacant land or derelict buildings were transformed into affordable inner city housing.
“The rising homelessness on our streets, and our continuing division, should be of concern.
Not the development of affordable housing,” Davids said.
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