This follows the City having repeatedly stated its commitment to using the well-located bowling green as a site for affordable and mixed-income housing.
In a statement the organisation said the City was leasing out the site for about R3000 a year for exclusive uses that provided no benefit to the wider Cape Town population or the City.
In what they labelled as resistance to well-located, affordable housing, Ndifuna Ukwazi head of head of organising Buhle Booi said such a development could be used as a revenue opportunity.
“If the City followed through on its commitment to develop the site as planned, it would not only provide desperately needed, well-located affordable housing, it would generate additional municipal revenue in the form of rates, and improve the financial and environmental sustainability of the City by increasing densification,” Booi said.
“The City is not only passing up a golden opportunity to build a fairer Cape Town, but it is also losing out on millions of rand every year in potential rates revenue by delaying the development of the bowling green for mixed income housing, in light of the fiscal dent made by the Covid-19 pandemic,” Booi said.
Booi said if the City should follow through on its commitment and provide a clear and implementable plan on how the site would be inclusively developed as a matter of urgency.
Representing Ndifuna Ukwazi, attorney Jonty Cogger expanded on the constitutional rights underpinning the organisation's objection to the renewed lease.
“Public land should be used for public benefit. In the context of our profound housing crises, it is immensely frustrating to see the City either renege on or once again delay its plans to develop the site into affordable and mixed-income housing.
“The City spent a considerable amount of money getting consultants to develop plans for the site to be developed for mixed-use housing, and yet these plans have been gathering dust in a filing cabinet in the Civic Centre for several years now,” Cogger said.
City spokesperson Lisle Brown said that a portion of the property had been ear-marked for mixed-use development, including affordable housing, as part of the City’s Land Release for Affordable Housing Priority Programme.
“In the interim, the property has been leased to a crèche, bowling and bridge clubs for a three-year period with a six-month cancellation clause.
“The initial three-year lease term has ended and council, as required, advertised its intention to renew the lease agreement for a further period of two years and 11 months while the mixed-use developmental plans with an affordable housing component on a portion of this site are being finalised.
“The comment/objection period closes on 7 November 2022. Public inputs will then be assessed by the Mayoral Committee and council in due course.
“The annual tariff of R3000 is based on the ‘social care’ rate charged to welfare, charitable, cultural and religious organisations performing community functions on leased council property.
“However, it is not correct that this is the only cost to lessees, who are also responsible for significant security and maintenance costs of the property which the City would otherwise need to cover,” Brown said.
Brown said that there was no choice between affordable housing or other community uses, and the City planned to do both on this property.
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