City plans to sell off a string of properties

There is nothing inherently wrong with municipalities selling off property, says a researcher at the University of Cape Town’s African Centre for Cities, provided the sales are transparent, open to public inputs and do not impede the municipality in delivering basic services.

Mayor Patricia de Lille announced the sale during a speech at a full council meeting on 20 August. 15 properties will be put on the market in October, while a further 50 will be on sale in the coming months.

“These pieces of land will provide opportunities for developers to use some of the City’s land and assets to drive new developments, while also creating a revenue stream for the City as well as creating jobs,” she said.

Among these are residential properties in Scottsdene, Mitchells Plain, Blue Downs, Khayelitsha, Goodwood and Elsies River, and business sites in Philippi East, Langa and Guguletu, said Zara Nicholson, the mayor’s spokesperson.

Community zoned sites (designated for churches, crèches and Early Childhood Development Centres and so forth) in Delft, Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain are also included in the list.

Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU), which this month brought various activists and stakeholders together to discuss the Urban Land Question, are opposed to the City’s land shedding plans.

“The City of Cape Town has regularly used the shortage of land in the City as a primary response to questions regarding inadequate housing provision and poor land redistribution,” said Jared Rossouw, NU deputy director, arguing that underutilised city land should be put to use for low-cost housing.

“The City states that those who are landless and homeless must follow the housing queue process. In the current crisis, how can the City expect residents to wait patiently while they do not duly prioritise all available City land to meet the demand?”

Rossouw argues that the ad hoc sale of land for short term income generation cannot be justified in the absence of comprehensive plans for the provision of housing and basic sanitation in communities where these are not being realised.

Stephen Berrisford, from the African Centre for Cities at UCT, however said that one-size-fits-all opinions about the sale of municipal land are over simplified. “It may not be a bad idea to sell land that does not provide social benefit and is expensive to maintain,” he said.

“In my opinion, there hasn’t been enough sale of (under-utilised) government land,” he said. “Hanging on to land, simply for the sake of hanging on does not make sense. That said, the City and the public need to ensure that the law and due process is followed, because the potential for (corruption) exists. The Municipal Financial Management Act spells out what needs to be done.”

The Act precludes the sale of an asset that is needed to provide a “minimum level of basic municipal service”.

Rossouw called for a detailed registry of the land up for sale to be released to the public and for it to be “open and transparent” about how much money is raised through the sale, who will benefit, and where it will be spent.