By Querida Saal
Small-scale developers have been building rental flats in the backyards of formal housing located in “townships” for over 20 years. Over time, the built form in these areas changed from rows of single-plot match-box RDP-type houses to the main (RDP/bonded) house plus a yard filled with numerous backyard informal structures or wendy houses. More recently, the township entrepreneurs: who we refer to as small-scale developers, have been building brick and mortar rental units, complete with all the furnishings of similar flats in more affluent areas. Indeed, the winds of change have blown.
As people flock to cities in search of a better living and house prices in the formal market soar, rental flats built by small-scale developers have become an affordable alternative to the formal sector.
Estimated to be a multi-billion-rand industry, the small-scale rental sector houses people in the GAP market. This comes as social housing, which is supposed to deliver affordable rental options in big townships such as Khayelitsha, have woefully failed to make a significant impact in these areas. Affordable rental flats, therefore, bridges this gap.
Until now, this type of housing development has happened largely outside of the formal regulatory planning environment. Cue the City of Cape Town’s bid to adjust its sails and adapt its regulatory framework to accommodate decades of innovation in the informal housing market.
In July of 2024, the City invited the public to comment on the draft amendments to the Municipal Planning By-Law (2015). These amendments are set to usher in significant change in municipal planning law and recognises the fundamental contribution that small-scale developers make in addressing the housing crisis.
The amendments propose an ‘affordable rental flat’, a new additional use right on properties within 194 target areas across Cape Town. The purpose of these amendments is to create a supportive regulatory and planning framework for the small-scale rental sector.
If approved, small-scale developers who want to build affordable rental flats will no longer have to submit rezoning planning applications; they can simply submit a building plan application, which implies a much less complex, onerous, lengthy, and costly process.
These amendments represent a progressive approach towards creating sustainable human settlements, specifically in areas where investment and private development have been scarce.
Development in previously disadvantaged communities now has the potential to become more organised, while being compliant with the existing municipal planning and building framework.
Will the infrastructure hold?
Inevitably, one of the effects of an increase in the number of affordable housing units being constructed is an increase in densification, which places additional demand on an area’s existing bulk infrastructure and internal services.
This means that putting mechanisms in place to ensure that the City’s infrastructure can accommodate increased densification in the targeted areas will be crucial for the success of the sector. It’s worth noting that as more small-scale developers become compliant, the City will be able to increase its revenue generation within those areas, enabling additional investments in infrastructure improvements, as well as social amenities, green spaces, crime prevention and urban management.
The proposed amendments present the municipality with an opportunity to ensure that this type of development is balanced with a proactive approach to infrastructure management and construction. It puts the authorities in a much better position than before to regulate developments in the identified areas.
The point is “informal” housing development have been and continues to take place unabated. Unless we find a way to stem urbanisation and migration into cities, infrastructure development will always slightly trail behind. The most viable response on the part of cities, therefore, is sustained improvements in existing infrastructure and incremental new developments.
Concerns around Densification
Urban land is a finite resource. This means that increased densification, and the release of well-located public land are of the few responses that metropolitan municipalities have at its disposal to keep up with its built environment requirements over time.
Historically, Cape Town has had sustained low density development, despite the fact that low density development threatens the City’s long-term sustainability, by raising the cost of developing new infrastructure while existing infrastructure may be underutilised. It also increases urban sprawl, and it makes development of viable transport networks costly.
The reality is that high densification has been a trend in most, if not all the 194 identified areas. We see it in the form of multiple structures in the backyards of RDP-houses and CRU flats. We see it in the form of numerous family members being cramped into two-roomed shacks in overcrowded informal settlements. And we see it in the increasing occurrence of building occupations in the inner city. Opposing densification in these areas would be tilting at windmills.
Instead, what we need is a pragmatic approach, to where densification happens in a way that is mindful of the existing social fabric and built form, that sees infrastructure development happening sustainably, and where the process unfolds in a lawful manner that enables the authorities to ensure that the necessary amenities and transport networks are put in place to accommodate these growing neighbourhoods.
Onboarding the Naysayers
Small-scale developers and their response to the housing problem are not exempt from pushback. Mostly, naysayers include resident and homeowner associations, and different community groupings (NIMBYists) that oppose this type of “backyard” development. In our experience, much of their opposition is based on assumptions about property value depreciation because of “unlawful shacks and flats” that irreversibly change the fabric of the neighbourhood. Their pushback is further based on unfounded conclusions about irresponsible densification. Some are opposed to efforts that address spatial inequality and that lead to more inclusive and representative neighbourhoods. Others lament possible increased traffic congestion.
The small-scale developers that we support, and the communities that benefit from affordable rentals remain committed to promoting a shared understanding and appreciation of the value-add of the small-scale rental sector, specifically when the metro is facing a severe affordable housing crisis.
Part of this is fostering a mindset shift where small-scale affordable rental flats are no longer seen as poorly constructed “backyard shacks” that bring crime and grime into neighbourhoods, and instead start to be seen for the decent affordable rental housing opportunities that they are, bringing value to the areas in which they are built.
Where to from here?
As a start, we urge the council to approve these very necessary amendments. Following that, the mechanisms to support their implementation must be rolled out expeditiously. We urge sceptics to look to the millions of families housed by small-scale developers, and to partner with the sector in co-creating solutions that will set the sector up to succeed. We call on small-scale developers to continue to build but to do so in compliance with the law once it is approved.
Finally, we invite interested individuals to join DAG, the TDF, and sector stakeholders and to commit themselves to a process aimed at developing innovative solutions to the national challenge of inadequate affordable housing delivery.
Querida Saal is a researcher for the Development Action Group.