Abstract
In South Africa, recent initiatives to restructure cities towards greater compaction and integration include the formulation of an inclusionary housing policy, where private property developers are expected to offer some affordable housing in their developments. This paper examines policy and practice in the City of Johannesburg where an inclusionary housing policy is intended to work together with a growth management strategy to direct infrastructural investment. However the policy has hardly been used. The paper examines the policy and its development, initiatives to use it, and the challenges it faces. Key constraints include: resistance by the property development industry and middle/upper-income residents; South Africa’s huge income inequalities and hence housing price cliffs; and institutional and legal issues. These concerns have in part underpinned the lack of supportive national policy. In this context, local policies have been confined to specific, deal-driven projects, but these have also been fraught with problems, and have delivered few affordable units. The potential of inclusionary housing policy for reshaping South African cities therefore seems limited, although it could play a small role if national policy with careful attention to implementation were formulated. An alternative form of mixed income developer-led housing seems to have greater potential, although it is focused on low/middle-income housing and relies to a significant extent on government subsidies, in contrast to inclusionary housing proper.
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Notes
The use of racial categories in this article reflects a pervasive reality in South Africa, and is not intended to condone it. The term ‘black’ is used to refer collectively to African, Indian and coloured people.
‘RDP’ refers to the Reconstruction and Development Programme, in terms of which this programme was first developed.
This definition varies to some extent between documents and upper ranges are sometimes much higher. However it reflects an attempt to target the ‘working poor’ and lower middle occupations such as nurses, shop workers, clerical staff—those earning more than the groups targeted for fully-subsidised housing. House prices needed to be within a range of R50,000 to R350,000, and rentals between R600 and R3,000 per month (pm) (2007 prices) (DoH 2007).
During the property boom, the private sector delivered on average 40,000 units, compared to some 150-200,000 units delivered by government. 8,000 units assumes 20% of units go to affordable housing.
A Gauteng policy document argued that the price ratio of affordable to market units in developed country inclusionary housing projects seldom exceeds 1: 3 compared to a likely South African ratio of 1:20 or more (Smit and Abrahams 2010).
A 2007 Appeal Court Ruling—later confirmed by a 2010 Constitutional Court ruling—had declared that planning was a local function. A Western Cape attempt to impose compulsory inclusionary housing was overturned by the courts as it interfered with private land rights (Tomlinson and Narsoo 2008).
The social housing institution receives this subsidy from the Department of Human Settlements for each family earning below R3,500 per month.
Full government subsidies are available for households earning R3,500 or less pm; some subsidisation occurs for the ‘gap market’—households earning between R3,500 and R7,500 pm. Free-market affordable housing occurs above this level. Developers interviewed however talk of households in the ‘gap’ market as those earning between R3,500 and R10,000 pm, and free market/affordable housing as catering for those earning above R10,000 pm.
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Acknowledgments
The valuable inputs and insights of people interviewed for this project are gratefully acknowledged. Thanks to Mitchel Hawkins and Miriam Maina for mapping. This material is based upon work supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF), South Africa. Any opinion, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and therefore the NRF does not accept any liability in regard thereto.
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Klug, N., Rubin, M. & Todes, A. Inclusionary housing policy: a tool for re-shaping South Africa’s spatial legacy?. J Hous and the Built Environ 28, 667–678 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-013-9351-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-013-9351-8