On Thursday, 7 November, the construction of the first social housing project in the Princess area was launched.
The project was launched by the MMC for Housing, Councillor Meshack van Wyk, and Speaker of Council, Vasco Da Gama, in conjunction with the City’s social housing entity JOSHCO.
The Johannesburg Social Housing Company (JOSHCO) has partnered with City of Johannesburg to allocate and build affordable, social housing throughout Johannesburg. They have been active in developing new and improving existing, affordable rental housing opportunities for Johannesburg residents.
After Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba took office in 2016, he dedicated his term to those whom he called The Forgotten People. He did this in the hope of providing service delivery to the residents of the City of Johannesburg municipality who had previously been ignored.
This project is also aimed at integrating mixed-income groups to achieve social, economic, and spatial integration.
MMC van Wyk said that while CoJ acknowledges the housing crisis, the demand is greater than the supply. However, this project has been launched with the hope of restoring dignity to the residents who feel they have been forgotten by providing affordable, quality social housing.
“While I know it is only a drop in the ocean, it is better than nothing.”
This is the first social housing project in the Princess area and will include a three-storey walk-up apartment block comprising 333 units. These units will accommodate residents with monthly incomes ranging from R1 500 to R15 000 and features amenities and facilities that will keep residents comfortable and safe.
These amenities and facilities include:
• Access control such as a guardhouse, biometric systems, and perimeter fencing
• A maintenance office
• Post boxes
• Drying yards
• Heat-pumps
• Rainwater harvesting
• DSTV satellite dishes
• Parking area lighting
• Well-designed public open spaces
The MMC said that developments and improvements such as these are critical for driving the economy and job creation. That is why the City is dedicated to providing housing that is not only affordable, but economically sustainable in neighbourhoods with easy-to-access transport nodes that will link to job opportunities and, ultimately, a better quality of life.
René Benjamin, the councillor for Ward 71, said that a community is supposed to be a group of people who come together, work together, and live together with the idea of equality in life, but the residents in the poorer areas do not feel that to be true. She is hoping that this development will change that.
“A community is a melting pot of skills, hopes, and dreams. We hope that this JOSHCO development will help the residents who are able to get work from it, achieve their hopes and dreams.”
Social housing projects such as this one will also be conducted on a first-come, first-served basis. The ward-based allocation system has caused several problems; people have been on the waiting list since 1996 and 1997 because of this system. The ward-based allocation system has allowed for queue-jumping based on area, which the MMC does not condone.
The MMC said that the current aim is to push the first-come, first-served system through the council to make it the new guiding document for projects like this as a way to stop officials from allocating housing based on area.
However, as this is the first project like this in the Princess area, 50 per cent of the units will be going to citizens currently living in Princess and other areas of Roodepoort.
JOSHCO and CoJ have hopes that the construction of these apartments will be completed within the next two years.
