Human Settlements

• My Department’s position is that backyard dwellers should be provided with housing opportunities within each municipality. This approach is reflected in the department’s “Provincial Framework Policy for the Selection of Housing Beneficiaries”.

• The Framework defines core elements to be used for beneficiary selection for housing projects and sets out the principles to be used in the design of institutional arrangements for selection. It specifically calls for municipalities to balance housing opportunities between various groups. It states that the number of people in formal overcrowded conditions (often referred to as ‘backyarders’) and informal settlement dwellers receiving subsidised housing opportunities should be balanced against each other in each municipality.
• The Framework further states that balancing should occur over successive multi-year planning periods and over the portfolio of human settlement projects planned and executed in a municipality. Delivery targets for each group should be set out in a municipality’s Human Settlement Plan and Integrated Development Plan and reported upon in the corresponding annual and multi-year reports.

• In practice, each municipality decides on the number and size of Greenfield projects and Upgrade of Informal Settlement Projects (UISP) in a year (or rather over a 5 year period). This decision should be informed by the “profile” of need in a municipality i.e. number of informal settlement dwellers without individual services versus the number of backyarders without individual services.

• In addition to this, my department has also established the Western Cape Housing Demand Database (WCHDDB) on a centralised provincial platform in January 2012 to assist municipalities to improve their housing demand data collection and management systems and practices. This database is an essential instrument used by municipalities to register the housing needs of backyard dwellers. My department has also created more affordable rental units in well-located areas for backyarders who prefer to rent or those that do not qualify for subsidised houses.

My department has conducted a number of workshops and training sessions to municipalities on the Provincial Framework Policy and the Western Cape Housing Demand Database. This is done on a continuous basis and also when the need arises (e.g. when municipalities request more training sessions).