The metro is changing the face of informal settlements.
In this regard it has adopted a programme called re-blocking which will see informal settlements turned into livable human areas.
“We have 119 informal settlements in our area.
“We, therefore, have a responsibility to ensure that the living conditions of our people living in these areas improve,” said Ekurhuleni’s executive mayor Clr Mondli Gungubele.
“After carefully assessing the situation we discovered that with such a huge housing backlog, we must find a way of making these areas livable – and the answer was re-blocking.”
Re-blocking is a process of reconfiguring the current layout of informal settlements and reorganising the ground plan in such a manner as to optimally utilise space to promote the health, safety and well-being of households, with a particular focus on promoting accelerated service delivery to informal settlements, the mayor explained.
The metro believes that, through this programme, there will be an integrated urban structure, a safer integrated public realm, improved access for emergency vehicles, safe and convenient paths for movement of pedestrians, open spaces for essential community facilities and broader access to municipal services.
“We are now in the process of doing occupancy audits of all our informal settlements.
“This will enable us to understand how many informal structures we have and how we should restructure them so that we could provide key essential services,” Gungubele said.
“Already all our informal settlements receive basic services such as clean water, sanitation, waste management, access roads and high mast lighting – but we are now saying what more can we do while they wait to be relocated to formal areas someday?”
He revealed that the Winnie Mandela informal settlement in Tembisa and the Ekuthuleni informal settlement in KwaThema are the first to be targeted and an audit is already being undertaken and electricity being rolled out.
In responding to the housing backlog, Gungubele said the metro has adopted the densification policy, which involves the creation of high-rise human settlements well located within public transport corridors for easy movement between work and home, and in locations where there is access to opportunities, networks, capabilities and facilities that can support various types of livelihoods.
“This is why we are now going high-rise buildings which will allow us to optimise the number of houses produced per development.
“These developments include fully-subsidised units, rental stock and bond units for people earning between R3 500 and R18 000 per annum,” Gungubele explained.
As part of this programme, 250 units are already under construction in Delville and the area near the Germiston Fire Station.
Meanwhile, last Friday, the mayor, together with the MMC for human settlement Clr Aubrey Nxumalo, handed out 101 brand new houses and over 700 title deeds to the residents of Chief Albert Luthuli Park in Benoni.
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