No. 87

URBAN LAND ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY :

LAND TENURE REGULARISATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES PROVISION

Lauren Royston January 1998 Working Paper No. 87

URBAN LAND ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTH AFRICA:

LAND TENURE REGULARISATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES PROVISION

Lauren Royston*

January 1998

*Lauren Royston Development Planning Alternatives 8 Gascogne Street Observatory 2198, South Africa

Tel: 00 27 11 487 1002 Fax: 00 27 11 487 1025 This report was initially prepared for Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France, as part of a programme of research co­ordinated by Alain Durand­Lasserve, 7 rue Sante Garibaldi, 33000 Bordeaux, France.

The author gratefully acknowledges the interest and support of Alain Durand­Lasserve, Carien Engelbrecht, Marc Feldman and John Spiropoulos in the writing of the paper. URBAN LAND ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTH AFRICA: LAND TENURE REGULARISATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES PROVISION

CONTENTS

I INTRODUCTION 1 National Democracy 1 South Africa's Local Urban Transition 2 The Urban Development Challenge 3

II BACKGROUND 3

III THE LAND PLANNING SYSTEM IN SOUTH AFRICA 4 A Failing Formal System of Land Delivery to the Urban Poor 4 The View from the Ground: A Case Study of Invasion and Regularisation on Johannesburg's Northern Fringe 7 The View from the Government ­ Land Assembly and Release at an Appropriate Rate and Scale 8 A Question of Priorities ­ Redressing the Legacy of the Apartheid City 11

IV ACCESS TO MUNICIPAL SERVICES 12 The National Policy Framework 12 Short Term Intervention 13 Emergency Servicing 14

V SECURITY OF LAND TENURE 15 Upgrading Inferior Tenure Rights in former African Townships 16 Security of Tenure for Tenants and "Sharers" 17 Tenure Security in Informal Settlements 17 Recent Trends and Some Indications of Innovation 17 Land Title Registration 18

VI THE RESPONSES BY VARIOUS URBAN ACTORS 18 New Institutional Arrangements 18 Responsibility for Urban Development 19 Responsibility for Housing Subsidy Allocation 20 The Role of the Private Sector 20 The Role of Communities 20

VII PRESENT OPTIONS AND ALTERNATIVES REGARDING URBAN LAND ACCESS 20 Constraints to land Release 21 Responses to Land Invasions 22 A Diversity of Approaches, including a Clear Policy on Upgrading 23 Dealing with Other Forms of Regularisation: the Recognition of Subletting and Sharing 24

VII CONCLUSION 25

BIBLIOGRAPHY 25 NOTE 26 URBAN LAND ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTH AFRICA: LAND TENURE REGULARISATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES PROVISION

I INTRODUCTION has also been directed at delivery. A number of key initiatives are in place in the urban areas of South National Democracy Africa. The Masakhane Campaign aims at normalising governance, accelerating municipal service provision The first ever national democratic elections in April and ensuring that users pay for the services they 1994 heralded fundamental transformation in South consume. The National Housing Programme aims to African society. For the first time South Africa had a increase sustainable housing delivery and, among other shared national vision of reconstruction and things, introduces a capital subsidy scheme. The development to bind the country and its people. The National Land Reform Programme intends to Reconstruction and Development Programme was redistribute land to the poor for both residential and published in November 1994 as government=s strategy productive purposes; restore land and provide other for fundamental transformation. In March 1996 remedies to people dispossessed by racially national government launched its new macro­economic discrimination legislation and practice; and provide strategy, AGrowth Employment and Redistribution@, security of tenure for all. The Municipal Infrastructure simply referred to as GEAR. Government has Programme addresses immediate backlogs in the committed itself to reduce the budget deficit, control delivery of infrastructure services by aiming to ensure inflation, reduce tariffs and exchange controls, offer tax that all communities have access to a basic level of incentives and invest in infrastructure backlogs to service within the next ten years. create an environment which is friendly to investors [RSA, 1996]. Over the past two years, individuals and communities who lost their access to land under apartheid laws have The past three years have seen enormous progress on been submitting claims under the Restitution the policy front ­ most national government Programme in such historic places as and departments have formulated new sets of objectives and Alexandra in Johannesburg, District Six in Cape Town issued new policy frameworks in the form of White and Lady Selbourne in Pretoria. However, at the time of Papers. The Ministry in the Office of the President was writing 17,000 claims have been registered, fifteen are quick to publish the White Paper on Reconstruction and awaiting final ratification and only three have been Development ­ the Government of National Unity=s successfully processed [DLA, 1997]. The deadline for instrument for coordinated policy development and claiming restitution has recently been extended to the implementation. The ministry has since been disbanded end of 1998. and aspects of the RDP Aparcelled out@ to line function departments. Soon after democracy, the Housing By July 1997, a total of 324 land redistribution projects Department issued a new housing policy and strategy had been approved in South Africa, or 63,800 for South Africa, in December 1994. More recently, households and 1.8 million hectares of land [Royston, the Department of Land Affairs published South 1997]. Africa=s Land Policy in April 1977, following a fairly intensive process of consultation. The policy making In terms of MIP, and later its extension (the Extension process continues ­ for example the Department of of the Municipal Infrastructure Programme), central Constitutional Development is currently in the throes of government introduced once off grant funding to drafting a White Paper on Local Government. rehabilitate, upgrade and provide new municipal infrastructure to meet the basic needs of communities Significant legislation has also been promulgated such (totalling approximately R 1,350 million in the 1994/5 as the Development Facilitation Act which aims, and 1995/6 financial years) [DCD, undated a]. To date, amongst other things, to facilitate the speedy release of an estimated 6.5 million people have been reached by land. A range of land related legislation has been the MIP, of the targeted 8 million beneficiaries. R passed including the Communal Property Association 1,315 million has been committed by the provinces to Act (1996) which enables communities or groups to approved or pending projects. It is estimated that MIP acquire, hold and manage property under a written will have employed 242,000 people by the end of 1997 constitution and the Upgrading of Land Tenure Rights and that 94,000 people will have received some form of Act (1993), which provides for the upgrading of training [DCD, undated a]. However, the actual various forms of tenure. delivery of the MIP to site has been slow due, according to the Department of Constitutional Development, to In the midst of the policy formulation fervour, attention delays in local elections and a lack of operative

1 municipal and community structures. Regional Services Councils were established in 1985 Latest statistics from the Department of Housing show primarily as a result of the financial under­capacity of that nearly one quarter of the one million houses target the black local authorities to maintain, upgrade and are already built or under construction [Department of develop areas under their jurisdiction. RSCs were Housing, 1997]. In other words, almost 250,000 houses therefore seen as an attempt by the government to prop were built or under construction in July 1997. Since the up the unpopular system of black local authorities. In inception of the housing programme in 1994, the practice the most prevalent function of RSCs was the provincial housing boards have approved close on subsidisation, rather than substitution, of black local 600,000 subsidies. This means that at approximately authority functions [Royston, 1992]. half way to 2000, three quarters of the target number of houses still need to be developed. In province, From about 1979 one of the most striking features of 71,000 houses are being, or have already been, built ­ township politics was the emergence of "radical" or this is 30% of the provincial share of the one million "progressive" civic organisations, frequently referred to target [Department of Housing, 1997]. as "community" organisations or simply "civics". The organisational efforts of the Civic Movement and While significant progress has been made in policy, related structures between 1986 and 1992 included and partially in implementation terms, much has yet to mass actions such as the boycotts of rents and service be done for the majority of the populace to feel that its charges, the campaigns against un­elected and basic needs are being delivered to, a fact of which the un­mandated black local authorities and local level government is well aware especially with national negotiations between Civics and the state, around the elections looming in 1999. Delivery continues to be question of development. the clarion call of government now, as it was then, in 1994. Local government has been described as the From 1990 to 1993, as the crisis of black local Ahands and feet@ of reconstruction and development in authorities intensified, a series of local level South Africa [DCD, undated b]. In 1994 local negotiations began, especially in the erstwhile municipal elections were yet to take place. Then and Transvaal province. The demand from residents was for now, it is transition at the local level that affects people "one city, one tax base". Civics were the main players most. in representing communities in these negotiations. White local authorities and provincial bodies were South Africa's Local Urban Transition forced to become involved in the process because of the rejection of the Black Local Authority system by All local authorities in South Africa were racially based residents and the resulting services and payment crisis. until democratic, non­racial municipal elections in Through these forums civics were increasingly linking 1995. The apartheid government imposed local concerns about non racial local government with government structures on disenfranchised communities. broader development issues like inadequate land, Local authorities were established in black areas in housing and services. 1982 and were subject to tight control exercised by provincial authorities and central government. The The negotiations process at local level, in which civics location of low income "dormitory" towns outside of the were the primary "non statutory" force, was overtaken major commercial and industrial tax bases and the in 1993 by the constitutional process of local widespread rent and service charges boycott led to the government transition. In 1993 the Local Government financial inviability of black local authorities. Black Transition Act (LGTA) was promulgated to provide the local authorities were a target of popular resistance regulatory framework within which local government from their inception. Participation in elections was transition could take place to allow the integration of negligible and many councillors resigned their posts. previously segregated local authorities. Those town councils which were no longer "served" by councillors were run by administrators ­ appointed South Africa=s local transition to democracy is marked state officials [Royston, 1992]. by three phases. The period after the collapse of apartheid until municipal elections were held in White Local Authorities, on the other hand, had full November 1995 and July 1996 was the Apre­interim@ municipal powers and functions. Councillors were phase. The current Ainterim@ phase is preparing for the elected to their positions through municipal ward final phase at which point the passing of a new local elections in white areas. Municipal income was raised government act will herald a new system of local mainly from trading services and property rates. Their government. Much work has already been done on generally healthy financial situation resulted from the establishing non­racial local authorities. location of significant commercial and industrial tax bases in their boundaries. For the first time in South Africa=s history, all South

2 Africans over the age of eighteen had the opportunity to The key challenges facing South Africa's urban areas vote for a municipal council of their choice in include [RSA, 1995]: democratic elections. In most places in the country these historic elections were held in November 1995. In !the integration of cities and towns, previously some (in the Western Cape Province), elections were separated through apartheid spatial planning; delayed until July 1996. The next elections will be held in 1999. !rebuilding dormitory townships, informal settlements and low income inner city residential areas; Over eight hundred municipalities were established across the country and nearly 12,000 councillors !the reduction of disparities in infrastructure and democratically elected. In the Greater Johannesburg facilities provision; Transitional Metropolitan Council, the African National Congress (ANC) gained majority !the provision of affordable shelter and security of representation on the metropolitan and four tenure; and substructure councils, and won 145 wards to the National Party's 45 and the Democratic Party's 31. !the transformation of local authorities into effective However, elections are about more than casting votes to and accountable institutions. create non racial local government. Local democratisation is also about meeting the needs of the people (services, infrastructure, land and housing), II BACKGROUND getting people to pay for services and facilitating community involvement in local government affairs. In 1995 South Africa's population is projected to be almost 42.8 million people. By 2000 the total Most municipalities have had a difficult time population will increase to approximately 47.4 million, establishing themselves ­ administrative, financial and at an annual growth rate of 2.27%. Between 1995 and technical capacity has often been lacking, especially 2000 an average of 200,000 new households will be outside the metropolitan areas. Administrative formed annually, given the projected rate of population reorganisation has consumed a large proportion of growth [RSA, 1994]. existing capacity. Although the level of staffing varies across functions, it is generally the case that local Between 19,6 million (48%) and 26 million (65%) of authorities lack adequate capacity, especially with the all South Africans live in metropolitan areas, cities and enlarged development functions that municipalities towns [Ministry in the Office of the President, 1995]. have assumed. Municipalities in South Africa are By the year 2000, 70% of the country's population is experiencing degrees of financial pressure, with some estimated to reside in urban areas. By 2020 this in a state of financial crisis. Local authorities face the proportion is estimated at 75% [RSA, 1994]. challenges of assuming a more developmental role, being more efficient in budgeting, administrative, The urban housing backlog in South Africa in 1995 is planning, service delivery and revenue collection estimated at approximately 1.5 million units. It is functions and enabling citizen participation. presently increasing at a rate of 178,000 units per annum, due to high rates of population growth and low The Urban Development Challenge rates of housing provision.

Past policies in South Africa have given rise to patterns At present, an estimated 1.5 million urban informal of land distribution that are racially skewed and housing erven exist which will require upgrading to inequitable, overcrowding in urban areas and the meet the minium standards of accommodation set out countryside, and poverty. About 3.5 million South in the housing policy. Approximately 720,000 of these Africans in urban and rural areas lost their land and are serviced sites that have been delivered through the rights in property through forced removals [DLA, Independent Development Trust's (IDTs) Capital 1995a]. Subsidy Scheme and by the four old Provincial Authorities, as well as shack housing over which tenure The Government of National Unity (GNU), which came may be held [RSA, 1994]. Approximately 13.5% of all into being as a result of the national elections, households (1.06 million households) live in committed itself to introducing fundamental changes to "freestanding" squatter settlements on the urban improve the opportunities of all South Africans to gain peripheries and in backyards of formal housing units beneficial and secure access to land and to create [RSA, 1994]. equitable land distribution within the context of building national reconciliation and stability. Accordingly, the large and increasing housing backlog due to low rates of formal housing provision is coupled

3 to an increasing number of people accessing land clear and effective strategies for land release, informal informally ­ in informal settlements, backyard shacks, settlements and land invasions will continue to grow in in overcrowded conditions in existing formal housing, number and complexity [DLA, 1997]. It goes further to and most contentiously, through land invasion. state the reality of landlessness and land invasions in South Africa but suggests that slow delivery of housing The GNUs goal is to increase housing's share in the programmes, delays in the release of land, unrealistic state budget to 5% and to increase housing delivery on expectations and a lack of information have a sustainable basis to a peak level of 350,000 units per exacerbated the situation. Regarding informal annum, within a five year period, in order to meet the settlements the land policy is clear that: target of 1 million houses in five years. AA de facto system of land rights exists on the ground, South Africa's new National Housing Vision is one in even if it is not legally confirmed ..... urban which all South Africa's people will have access on a progressive basis, to:

­a permanent residential structure with secure tenure, ensuring privacy and providing adequate protection against the elements; and

­potable water, adequate sanitary facilities including waste disposal and domestic electricity supply [RSA, 1994].

One of the most serious constraints to housing delivery is the large proportion of South Africa's population who are unable to afford adequate housing using their own financial resources alone. The unavailability of end user finance, especially to low income groups to whom financial institutions are reluctant to lend, further exacerbates the situation. 45­55% of households in need of housing, are unable to afford or access credit, and are therefore entirely dependent on their own limited resources and state subsidisation [RSA, 1994].

A key component of the new housing policy and strategy is providing subsidy assistance to disadvantaged individuals to assist them to gain access to housing. The national subsidies are aimed at providing security of tenure, access to basic services and a basic formal starter structure to the poorest of the poor. Informal development is a reality on South Africa's landscape. However, regularisation and upgrading of existing informal urban environments does not constitute a major element of housing strategies.

A combination of factors have historically constrained access to suitable urban residential land in South Africa including the state=s legislative land control mechanisms, the housing market=s impact on land use, the material limitations of those most in need and the unsuitable nature of geological sub­strata for housing in certain areas [Wolfson, 1991]. Rapid urbanisation is creating enormous pressure on urban land. The government=s land reform programme (see Figure 1) is directed at both urban and rural households. The Land Policy White Paper acknowledges that in the absence of

4 tenure upgrading programmes are a first step to service schemes and unofficial informal achieving stability@ [DLA, 1997]. settlements

Thus the beginnings of a framework for regularisation are in place, but the pace of the land reform programme in general and establishing urban tenure security in particular is slow.

Despite a plethora of policies and implementation programmes that have the potential to secure urban access for many people, it is at a local level that delivery actually occurs. The paper now turns its attention to the system of local level planning within which formal land delivery takes place. A range of municipal planning requirements have been legislated, of which the most significant are Land Development Objectives (in the Development Facilitation Act) and Integrated Development Plans (in the second amendment to the Local Government Transition Act).

IIITHE LAND PLANNING SYSTEM IN SOUTH AFRICA

A Failing Formal System of Land Delivery to the Urban Poor

The location and quantity of land identification for black South African's under apartheid was tightly controlled through legislation (the Black Communities Development Act) and according to the infamous Group Areas Act of 1966, along racial lines. Insufficient quantities of land were identified. For example, the 1986 Draft Guide Plan for the Central Witwatersrand (a statutory spatial plan representing a regional physical translation of national policy), identified 3,500 ha of land for black housing despite the guide plan predicting land requirements at 14,200 ha [NHF, undated]. Where new land was identified, it was usually close to established black townships, far from existing city centres and often on less desirable and less valuable land. Land was identified, expropriated and serviced in a rudimentary way by provincial administrations far from major concentrations, in places like Rietfontein and , 35­40 km south of Johannesburg. The insufficiency and unsuitability of land identification led to conditions of extreme overcrowding in formal housing stock, the establishment of sub tenancy relationships as people erected shacks in the back yards of formally established group areas and to land invasions, as communities organised to identify and deliver land themselves. It also had the effect of reinforcing the divided, fragmented and sprawling nature of South African cities.

Townships (characterised by a mix of formal and informal development), formally sanctioned site and

5 Figure 1: The Land Reform Programme: implications for access to urban land

The aim of the land reform programme is to redistribute rights in land to the landless, farm workers, tenants, women and the historically disadvantaged for homes, subsistence and production to improve their livelihoods. Land reform forms part of the effort to create just and fair land distribution and to build national reconciliation and stability.

Since national elections, a number of important steps have been taken towards the realisation of this goal. These include the enactment of various pieces of legislation such as The Restitution of Land Rights Act (1994), which created a Commission on restoring land rights and a Land Claims Court, The Development Facilitation Act (1995), which introduces measures to speed up land development, The Land Administration Act (1995), which makes provision for the assignment and delegation of powers to the appropriate authorities and The Upgrading of Land Tenure Rights Act (1993), which provides for the upgrading of various forms of tenure.

The land restitution programme aims to restore land rights and other forms of compensation to those dispossessed under racially discriminatory laws and practice since 1913 (the year in which the Black Land Act was passed). The urban restitution programme is directed toward development, given the pressing need for housing and urban renewal. It promotes locally negotiated group solutions to encourage urban claimants to form collective entities to decide on the details of the restitution package and on how best to use it. Where restitution is not feasible claimants will be encouraged to identify, plan and develop alternative land.

The land redistribution programme aims improve access to land for the landless, disadvantaged and the poor. Urban land redistribution is an integral part of the national housing programme, in that the housing subsidy contains a component that pays for the cost of residential land. The rural land redistribution programme offers a portfolio of support services including a settlement subsidy which is equivalent to the national housing subsidy to ensure equity. The settlement subsidy will be registered on the same national data base as the housing subsidy because any household receiving the settlement subsidy will not be eligible for a separate housing subsidy.

The tenure reform programme aims to provide secure tenure for all land occupants, whilst accommodating diverse forms of tenure in the country. The two components of the tenure reform programme are a tenure policy review involving consultation and research and legislative reform flowing from this. In urban areas, the main challenge facing tenure reform is to extend ownership rights to people holding land under short term and conditional state tenures. [DLA., 1997].

6 present the most significant spatial focus areas for services, gravel roads, water and toilets, these reflected reconstruction and development in South Africa's urban and entrenched the racial structure of the "apartheid areas, and for upgrading. city". From the early 1990s, a capital subsidy scheme was introduced by the government and the Independent South Africa's "matchbox" townships, initially Development Trust (IDT) was constituted to take developed as dormitory public housing areas, are delivery of state funds. The IDT schemes focused on characterised by a mix of formal and informal the development of site and service areas on greenfields development [Hindson et al, 1993a]. They are marked sites on the urban periphery as well, and individual in most cases by high levels of overcrowding and high private ownership was the primary and non­negotiable densities, as a result of both affordability constraints tenure form. Plots have been provided with basic and historical racial restrictions on access to land. So in services (toilet facilities and taps for each site or for any given township area, one is likely to find the groups of sites, a "wet core" in some cases) and some original matchbox houses (frequently overcrowded with education and health facilities. extended family occupation), pockets of informal settlements (often in "open space" land zones such as The government's new housing policy and strategy golf courses or parks) and households living in the adopts the following position with regard to site and backyards of the formal unit in outbuildings, garages, service development: and most frequently, shacks. Back­yard shacks are particularly a phenomenon in Gauteng. Densities are "Past inappropriate site and service approaches through accordingly high, in both population and dwelling unit which the poor were accommodated have to be left terms. The level of social facility provision is generally behind for good" [RSA, 1995]. low and, in many areas, services are stretched to capacity. Locationally, they are usually peripheral to Spontaneous informal settlement has occurred economic activity and urban amenities and people sporadically since the 1980s with a spate of new generally trave long distances to work. The absence of invasions in 1990 and 1991 as the period of democratic economic and fiscal bases and inadequate service reform began in the country [Urban Foundation, 1994]. delivery were the corner stones of township protest in This was a result of population movement from the eighties. Crime, violence and the breakdown of overcrowded townships and hostels, and rural urban services make these an important focus for integration migratory patterns. and reconstruction. More recently, lack of decisive action in the context of In recent years, poor and younger people have moved local government transition and high expectations, into squatter areas in or near townships, wealthier have once again witnessed an increase in the number of middle income people have relocated into inner city land invasions. During the course of 1994, prior to the flatlands, poorer white suburbs and middle income establishment of the transitional metropolitan council, white suburbs [Hindson et al, 1993a]. Townships are 3,900 shacks developed as a result of land invasions in consequently socially and economically pressured and the Johannesburg City Council area. Most of these were isolated. on public land.

The government's urban development strategy has this Following a land invasion in Johannesburg on a site to say about townships: called Liefde and Vrede on 3 June 1994, the new provincial government and the erstwhile Johannesburg "The rebuilding of the townships is an essential part of City Council reached an agreement on a moratorium on urban reconstruction and integration. ... Rebuilding land invasions and evictions. The council was prepared the townships is unquestionably the single most to undertake that it would cease evicting people, important urban development challenge facing the provided that land invasions would cease. The province country ... (The) transformation will include undertook to ensure the latter. In the six months augmenting and diversifying urban functions, following the declaration in June 1994, at least 2,300 upgrading and constructing new housing, restoring new shacks were erected. The moratorium had the and extending infrastructure services, promoting effect in the beginning of slowing the growth of new economic activities and alleviating environmental settlements, although existing invasion areas were hazards@ [RSA, 1995]. "encroached" upon. Once the moratorium was declared it proved impossible to prevent the erection of shacks in The extensive and mono­functional site and service inner city areas (on small open pieces of land and areas on the periphery of South Africa's urban areas public parks in previously white suburbs), and many were developed by provincial administrations in the evictions took place. Alternatives were not provided in 1980s as a response to the crisis. Planned site and many cases, leading to the invasion of new sites and service areas on the urban periphery, with basic expenditure on securing sites against further invasion.

7 In some cases, settlers were temporarily housed in Fringe vacant buildings in the inner city. An initial land invasion occurred approximately six In a council report in 1994 from officials to the newly years ago on a privately owned piece of land called appointed political authority in Greater Johannesburg, Zevenfontein. This was the first time action had been the administration advised that: taken by the homeless on the northern fringe to secure land for themselves and there was an outcry from the "Whatever else it is, land invasion is also a residents living in the area. manifestation of a serious housing shortage, and an impatience with the formal housing system Initially, a site called Bloubosrand was identified by the represented by the Provincial Housing Board responsible authority at the time, the Transvaal subsidy scheme". Provincial Administration, to resettle people from the Zevenfontein informal settlement. The land was bought The council supported the provincial position of by the province for this purpose, but residents from the seeking solutions to relieve the pressure, while not adjacent community opposed the move and the rewarding queue jumping. At this stage the council resettlement never took place. Responding to the adopted a position on regularising existing, not new, Zevenfontein invasion and the crisis that it heralded, informal settlements based on viability. A framework the provincial administration then began the planning process was established within which development of an area at for the relocation decisions could be made on which informal settlements of the Zevenfontein settlers, much to the chagrin of the could be upgraded and granted tenure security. landowners in this area. Ironically, this was in the area Alternatives would have to found for people living in that had been earmarked years before as a black settlements not viable for upgrading for geo­technical township dubbed "Norweto", rejected by the residents and other reasons. in the area and finally scrapped altogether. Although the owner of the Zevenfontein land was prepared for Actions taken by urban poor communities in the north the informal residents to stay, until such time as an western periphery of Johannesburg over the past few alternative was found, it was conditional on the number years, and responses by both local and provincial of shacks in the settlement not increasing. government, are indicative of the crisis of large scale landlessness and homelessness in South Africa's largest With the establishment of democratically elected city (see case study in the next section). Unique in the provinces throughout the country, following the sense that no black township was ever developed in the elections in 1994, the residents of Zevenfontein brought geographic sector of the city, the north west has the matter to the attention of the provincial Ministers of experienced particularly intense land hunger from those Development Planning, Environment and Works and of people who live in peri­urban areas, work in the retail Local Government and Housing. At a mass meeting in and commercial districts of the northern city centres, in July that year, the Ministers promised to initiate a two industrial areas on the northern fringe and as process to solve the problem. Subsequently, officials domestic workers in the wealthy suburban areas, but from the provincial administration were tasked with have historically not had any affordable residential this responsibility. provisions made for them in close proximity to employment. In the recent past, informal land access By this time Bloubosrand had been invaded by a small mechanisms became the de facto delivery system, as group of about 74 families. The community adjacent to the authorities struggled to deal with the rate and scale the site, who had rejected the proposed relocation of the of urbanisation pressures. Zevenfontein settlers here, wanted the immediate eviction of the settlers and threatened that if no action While invasions are an expression of demand, with was taken, they would take the law into their own little delivery taking place to satisfy this demand, land hands. They claimed that the crime rate in the area had invasions increase and unacceptable conditions risen astronomically. continue in many areas. Increases in land invasion are perceived as hampering efforts to timeously release Steering Committees were established for both the adequate, suitable land for human settlement in a Zevenfontein and Bloubosrand issues. In the initial planned manner. Furthermore, there is considerable meetings residents of Zevenfontein were loathe to move concern that invasions result in certain people to the Diepsloot site, perceiving it as legacy of the attempting to jump the housing/subsidy queue [RSA apartheid past ­ far from work opportunities and falling 1994]. far short of the promise of decent and affordable housing for all, wanting houses not shacks. The view from the ground: A case study of invasion and regularisation on Johannesburg's Northern By this time, the settlement had grown from an initial

8 500 to 1,700 and the province undertook to increase the and Bloubosrand squatters were not provision of emergency services to cater to the needs of relocated. Once transitional municipal structures were the new households. Attempts were still being made to in place, the resolution of the issue was further control the size of the settlement, adjusting the strategy complicated by a jurisdictional issue ­ responsibility to one based on the joint supervision, surveillance, lay with the relevant metropolitan sub structure. monitoring of entry check points and shack demolition Throughout Greater Johannesburg, primary tier local where necessary by provincial personnel and the authorities were much slower to establish themselves community. The community was represented by the than the metropolitan council as the administrative local civic, the African National Congress and the reorganisation process took its lengthy course. Inkatha Freedom Party. A section of the community claimed they were represented by none of these Significantly, the position adopted by the authorities structures. At one point a dispute occurred over the and negotiated with the stake­holders was the provision right of this section to separate representation. of temporary emergency services, coupled to the commitment to and process for finding alternative land. In the course of the Zevenfontein negotiation process, a In addition, the landowners bought into the process third land invasion occurred on the farm Zandspruit provided that the respective settlements did not grow, nearby, and the Zevenfontein land owner feared that but this was an impossible task for the community Zandspruit would now take precedence over representatives to ensure and failed in most cases. Zevenfontein. Much of the work of the provincial officials called in to Zandspruit was set up as a transit camp some years assist the Council with the three invasions previously by the Randburg Town Council to address comprised mediation and negotiation. The local level the land needs of people who were being evicted from decision making hiatus, as a result of the pending small farms in the Randburg area. It was provided with establishment of a transitional metropolitan council, emergency services. The transit camp filled up was a major stumbling block to sustainable and relatively quickly, leading to the encroachment onto an mutually acceptable solutions towards the end of 1994. adjacent piece of land in November / December 1994 There was considerable optimism in the ability of which was viewed by the authorities and the political decision making to hasten the development surrounding community as another land invasion. A process from the mediation into the implementation deal was struck whereby a place would be found to stage, from most stake­holders party to the move the Zandspruit squatters within three months. negotiations.

In the meantime the Bloubosrand stake­holders had Three years later, local authority structures have in fact agreed on the provision of emergency services in a both made decisions and identified additional land. At manner that did not encourage permanency, the search Zevenfontein, informal settlers still remain and recent for a permanent solution through the identification of indications from the land owner suggest a willingness alternative land and measures to deal with the security to sell. Diepsloot has since become part of a provincial and crime issues and on controlling the size of the programme of Areception areas@. Reception Areas aim settlement. The Zandspruit agreement had paved the to provide alternative land for people who have been way for a similar agreement in Bloubosrand in terms of evicted due to invasions of strategic land. In order to which resettlement to provincial land would occur avoid a quick route into the land and housing allocation within a three month period. Negotiations in all cases process, reception areas are not intended to be were sensitive and by the end of 1994 the province was permanent (at least, they are not marketed as such) ­ no depending on the identification of land within the permanent tenure rights are planned and the province Randburg area, as well as on decisions taken by the intends that individuals will only be able to rent sites. transitional council. Inevitably, reception areas become permanent, especially given the history of land demand in this A report was commissioned on land availability in the particular area. Land demand is being dealt with a area, on the understanding that the Diepsloot site would more coherent manner in the northern areas of Greater be considered as one of a range of possibilities for the Johannesburg ­ now under the jurisdiction of the Zevenfontein residents. Northern Metropolitan Local Council. Two sites have been identified in terms of the Rapid Land In the course of 1995 many of the Zevenfontein Development Programme (see next section) at squatters were relocated to Diepsloot. By the time Bloubosrand and Maroeladal. These, and additional local elections were held the site was still occupied, sites, are being considered to accommodate the as those remaining behind waited for an alternative site residents of Zevenfontein and other informal to be identified and assembled. This was a priority for settlements in the area. the newly elected council. By the end of 1995 the

9 The View from Government ­ Land Assembly and and mainly rural municipalities are supported in Release at an Appropriate Rate and Scale formulating LDOs. The Department of Constitutional Development (responsible for the LGTA) is more It is widely acknowledged that the efficient and speedy concerned about municipal infrastructure planning and assembly and release of land for housing is critical to municipal management, including financial planning achieving the desired rate of delivery. National and budgeting. Yet local authorities are faced with both legislation has been enacted and provincial internal pressures to deliver to constituencies, including programmes put in place to fast track land delivery. the landless, as well as external obligations to meet the requirements of a range of national departments. The The Development Facilitation Act is a short term principle of cooperative governance, although bridging measure to facilitate the speedy release of land. established in the new constitution, has not yet found A longer term programme is the transformation of the its way into political and administrative reality. In the regulatory framework within which land is developed absence of horizontal national coordination, it is which is fragmented, complex and inadequate. A new currently up to local authorities to find ways of institution, the Development and Planning Commission, undertaking a single, simple planning process that is to be tasked with the responsibility of overhauling the satisfies the range of requirements ­ an odious task! In present planning system. the light of such complexity, it will be important to monitor whether a strategic planning process does in The Development Facilitation Act introduces new fact materialise, and in those places where it does, measures to facilitate and expedite land development whether it enables local authorities to respond more projects and to bypass bottlenecks in existing pro­actively to land demands. regulations to accelerate delivery, especially the delivery of serviced land for low income housing. The In addition to an emerging national legislative Act puts in place a principle led approach to land framework, some provincial governments have development through the formulation of general responded to the land question by putting in place principles. Future land developments will be considered programmes for local authority implementation. Figure with reference to these principles, which include the 2 summarises several of Gauteng=s key of land reform acknowledgement of informal settlement areas. programmes. In Gauteng the Ministries of Local Particularly important to local government performance Government and Housing and of Development will be the proposed Land Development Objectives Planning hosted a consultative conference on the urban through which local governments will set development land crisis in December 1994. The conference endorsed targets, including land assembly and release for the following issues: housing the homeless. Development Tribunals, the institutions with responsibility for adjudicating land !land invasion is a manifestation of the housing development applications using the new legislation, backlog and a large proportion of the homeless have been recently established in several provinces in being unable to house themselves through the South Africa. It is currently too premature to effectively formal market measure success in fast tracking land delivery. However, !the successful prevention of land invasions requires preliminary indications suggest that the general making substantial land available for occupation principles for land development established by the DFA and fast tracking development in instances where leave such scope open for interpretation as too mean people are living in dangerous conditions almost anything to anyone. !once a process is established to identify, release and service land, the illegal occupation of land needs to Local level strategic planning could become an be prevented important instrument for planning the identification, !a programme of mass communication about how to release and assembly of suitable land at an appropriate access formal housing options and about the threat rate and at scale. Both the DFA and an amendment to that land invasion poses to formal low cost housing the Local Government Transition Act require local development, is required [Gauteng Province, 1995]. authorities to undertake municipal planning. Local authorities will also be required to undertake water and Following the conference the province developed a transport planning when legislation in the pipeline strategy for the rapid development of land for low becomes enacted. Each of these municipal planning income residential purposes, coupled to a strategy for requirements originate from a different national line managing land invasions ­ this was the birth of the department, with its own particular interests and points Rapid Land Development Programme (RLDP) in of emphasis. For instance, the Department of Land January 1995. The policy position originated in an Affairs (responsible for the DFA) sees LDOs as an understanding of supply and demand problems. On the opportunity for land reform planning to take place and one hand, it was an acknowledgement that existing is particularly concerned that poor, under­resourced housing strategies, financial constraints, delivery

10 blockages and the absence of an effective implementing agency were unable to keep pace with demand of the homeless for land. Lack of security, poor living conditions and years of exclusion and deprivation, on the other, were presented as the factors leading to large scale land and building invasions throughout the Gauteng province since national elections. The strategy aimed to deliver land quickly in order to preclude land invasions in a preemptive manner. However, the strategy was underlain by a very clear sentiment that land invasions are an unacceptable strategy that must be dealt with "firmly" and that homeless and landless people must be "patient" and disciplined". Politically,

11 Figure 2: Land Programmes of Gauteng Province

A number of key land programme have been identified by the Gauteng Provincial Government that build on the policies and programmes of the Department of Land Affairs.

ŽFormal land release and housing delivery will be supported that addresses the need for the delivery of formal housing within the constraints imposed by the National Housing subsidy Scheme and the Gauteng Provincial Housing Board.

ŽRapid Land Development Programme, an incremental housing programme in accordance with the National Housing Subsidy Scheme, entails the release of land for permanent settlement on an organised basis, in advance of full service provision and registration of tenure.

ŽThe Mayibuye Programme aims to redistribute land in terms of the land redistribution policy of the Department of Land Affairs for permanent, secure settlement to the landless in Gauteng in a manner which ensures speed and future community participation in upgrading.

ŽReception Areas Programme ­ reception areas will be established throughout Gauteng to provide alternative land for people who have been evicted due to illegal land invasions of strategic, government­owned land.

ŽRestitution: In support of the national policy of restoring land to people who were previously dispossessed, restitution in Gauteng is aimed at restoring equity and justice where property was previously unjustly appropriated by the state in terms of racially based legislation.

ŽInformal Settlements Upgrading Programme ­ informal settlements within Gauteng are to be systematically upgraded in order to establish security of tenure, stability, permanent services and local authority control.

ŽFormer Atownships@ tenure upgrading: lesser forms of tenure within existing residential areas are to be upgraded.

Ž The Informal Rental Sector: tenure insecurity in back yard shack areas will be recognised.

ŽThe Formal Rental Sector: rental housing will be established and maintained in order to provide a wider spectrum of choice to individuals and families.

[Quoted from Gauteng Province, 1996]

12 the strategy was intended to demonstrate government's controls, the movement of people out of overcrowded commitment to dealing with landlessness in a townships, and the exclusionary cost factors of well developmental and positive way. located land, informal settlement tended to take place on the urban fringes, reinforcing the pattern of planned A series of procedural problems were encountered in lateral urban growth. Urban sprawl has been further the early phases of the RLDP including the exacerbated by low building densities and the dominant reluctance of the Gauteng Provincial Housing Board to one house per plot model of suburban development approve the Johannesburg projects, which were situated [Hindson etal, 1993a]. The DFA explicitly discourages on land adjacent to existing, middle income residential the phenomenon of urban sprawl and requires that areas. In November 1994, the Mayibuye Programme policy, practice and legislation contribute to the was initiated in response to increasing land invasions development of more compact towns and cities [RSA, and the threats that these were posing to development 1995b]. initiated by government and the private sector. RLDP entailed permanent, organised settlement including Opportunities for "compaction" are the densification of essential services (sanitation and potable water) at the existing areas and developing large tracts of vacant time of occupation. In recognition of the delays that land left open by apartheid planing ("buffer strips" were being encountered in the RLDP, Mayibuye between racially segregated residential areas) and envisaged block planning and the provision of removals [CWMC, 1993]. emergency services only, i.e. portable toilets and water tankers at the time of occupation. RLDP tenure Integration is a mechanism to redress the fragmentation proposals were for a >tenure certificate= for an and division arising from mono functional land uses identified plot, to be upgraded to full tenure once the and separation based on racial groupings and income housing subsidy had been fully utilised. Mayibuye [Hindson et al, 1993a]. With the collapse of apartheid also proposed a >tenure certificate= which reflects the and in the period that preceded this, income division rights of the occupant to remain in occupation of an emerged as a particularly important form of separation. undefined portion of the area /block to be upgraded The relatively better off low income groups have tended once individual sites have been allocated. to consolidate in the formal, serviced townships, which are relatively better located. The very poor have been displaced into lower quality accommodation in existing A Question of Priorities ­ Redressing the Legacy of townships (hostels and backyard shacks) or to informal the Apartheid City settlements on the periphery of the city.

The RLDP experience in Johannesburg has The DFA requires that policy, administrative practice demonstrated the difficulty of rapidly releasing well and laws promote sectorally integrated land located land for low income settlement [Royston, 1996]. development, residential and employment opportunities By comparison, those local councils that elected to go a in close proximity with one another and the correction route of less resistance, by locating RLDP sites in more of historically distorted patterns of spatial development peripheral places, have had a much speedier land [RSA, 1995b]. Integration opportunities can be release process, although leaving the spatial quo more maximised by utilising well located vacant land for low or less unchallenged. The significance of this issue is income settlement, promoting a mix of land uses and far reaching as a range of pervasive development improving transportation and communication linkages planning principles come under fire [Royston, 1996]. between areas [CWMC, 1993 and Hindson et al, 1993a]. Integration, compaction, efficiency and equity have emerged as the dominant principles in the post The physical structure of the apartheid city has had a apartheid planning polemic. They are advanced as the range of affects on urban efficiency and equity. The foundations of planning frameworks which seek to necessary threshold of support for public transport and redress the legacy of apartheid spatial planning and the higher order commercial and service facilities is absent. inherited urban form. A compact and integrated city concentrates purchasing power, facilitates more spatially efficient markets for The notion of a "compact city" is widely promoted to consumer activities, and reduces transport costs. The redress the sprawling characteristic of South Africa's provision of services is more expensive in low density cities and towns. Racial planning has contributed most developments and in new peripheral development on significantly to urban sprawl [Hindson et al, 1993]. It the urban edge. In addition to increasing these capital aimed to remove black people from inner city and costs, the operating costs of urban management are also racially mixed residential areas, to new townships more expensive, for instance the operation of road located on the urban periphery, far from "white" based public services, the maintenance of public open residential areas. With the collapse of apartheid influx spaces and the subsidisation of public transport to move

13 workers from dormitory residential areas to centres of servicing leaves this paradigm unchallenged [Royston, industrial and commercial economic activity [Hindson 1996]. The problem of how to deal with settlements et al, 1993a]. that have been occupied prior to the provision of infrastructural services has not been unravelled in any A sprawling and fragmented city structure imposes a great detail. This means that the in situ upgrading and tremendous cost burden on the urban poor. Low density regularisation of informal settlements has received urban sprawl makes the provision of cheap and efficient relatively scant policy and implementation attention, public transport extremely difficult. It increases the despite the existence of many un­serviced communities. costs and time spent on daily travel to access On the other hand, the policy framework (for example employment opportunities and urban amenities the housing strategy and policy embodied in the concentrated at the centre. Housing White Paper) for the development of vacant land and new housing delivery has been well developed. The key dilemma that emerges out of this new trend, Some experiences in the province of KwaZulu/Natal and possibly contradiction, is the question of how much are an exception to this general trend. weight is attached to upgrading and improving the quality of life in existing peripheral areas. While the The Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework new positions significantly critique the earlier urban (MIIF), issued in June 1995, provides a national policy strategies of the apartheid state, there is an uneasy framework for the provision of municipal balance between "infilling", densifying and renewing infrastructure i. The MIIF estimates the infrastructure core city areas, servicing and de­densifying poorly backlogs for all municipal areas throughout South located former black townships and upgrading and Africa, suggests how much it will cost to remove the regularising squatter areas that are on the periphery. backlogs, considers the affordability of overcoming the While compaction and integration are essential for backlogs, proposes the financial mechanisms that improving the efficiency of the city, the middle class should be used for this purpose, and suggests the and relatively privileged sections of the black institutional arrangements necessary in order to community are likely to be favoured. The mass of the improve the provision of services. The rationale of the urban poor on the other hand may not be catered for. A MIIF is that infrastructure will improve access to basic further dimension to this tension is that the needs, enhance the health profile of the poor and so too identification of well located vacant land for low their access to employment opportunities, and income settlement will incur the wrath of existing contribute to both employment creation and property owners adjacent to these areas, as the RLDP government revenue (which in turn can be used for demonstrates. Trying to get the agreement of all delivering additional infrastructure and social services). interested and affected parties takes long and frequently has outcomes which do little to overcome the "NIMBY" The MIIF acknowledges that a five year programme to (not in my backyard) syndrome, and probably enforces eliminate backlogs and keep pace with new demand is it. not feasible because of the rapid increase in delivery capacity required. A ten year programme is therefore proposed within which much (but not all) of the IV ACCESS TO MUNICIPAL SERVICES backlog is made up within the first five to seven years. It is estimated that the programme will cost R 60 ­ 70 An estimated 4 million people (15% of the urban billion in capital expenditure. population) have access to water which is untreated and not reticulated. About 8 million people (30%) have The financial sustainability of urban infrastructure over access to minimal sanitation (ie shared toilet facilities time represents a key objective of the programme. and unimproved pit latrines). Approximately 8,5 Earlier in this report the effects on equity and efficiency million people do not have access to electricity (32 % of of city structure have been addressed. As far as the urban population). Some 8 million people (30%) municipal infrastructure goes, the capital and operating have neither immediate formal road access to their costs of urban development directly impact on residence nor any form of storm­water drainage [RSA, efficiency. For example, the provision of services is 1995]. more expensive in low density (one house per plot) forms of development; the extension of new bulk The National Policy Framework infrastructure is frequently required to service new (and existing un­serviced) settlements located on the urban The direction that infrastructure policy has historically edge; the operation of road based public services like taken in South Africa is that the provision of refuse collection is unnecessarily expensive [Hindson et infrastructure should precede settlement [Hindson et al, al, 1993]. It is these inefficiencies which the MIIF 1993a]. The resistance of local government officials to seeks to address, with important consequences (and implement projects that require post settlement trade offs) for the spatially peripheralised urban poor.

14 [Ministry in the Office of the President, 1995]. Should In order to obtain access to public grants, an central government transfers be unsustainable in the infrastructure programme must demonstrate that longer term, poorer households could be displaced. lifeline support, and no more than that, is available in areas where investment in a basic level of infrastructure Financial analysis of the MIIF shows that it would not cannot be justified, and the areas's survival is be feasible without a significant capital grant from dependent on other subsidies (e.g. commuter subsidies). central government. It is envisaged that two­thirds of This is applicable to spatially marginalised areas. the amount from central government would be sourced from the national housing subsidy. In addition, it is According to the MIIF, urban infrastructure provision proposed that R10­12 billion be made available over ten should take into account the disparities between years from additional infrastructure grants outside the different communities and the underlying needs in each housing capital subsidy. area. However, the provision of services in areas where the only base for the economy is welfare receipts, or in Depending on the terms available, a significant areas from where employment can only be reached at proportion of the capacity expenditure by local frequently incurred high costs of travel, would be authorities and/or service providers would be borrowed tantamount to building poverty and/or a perpetuation of on the capital market. At present, access to these dependence into the national economy. markets is limited; however the MIIF establishes that all public interventions should have as their goal the Financial contributions by consumers, (households, shift towards raising capital on the private capital businesses, facilities, etc.) are critical to the success of market as soon as possible. Local authorities are, in the MIIF. Consumers would be expected to pay for terms of the MIIF, expected to be able to finance capital services in accordance with the level of service expenditure through a combination of: provided and the amount consumed. The levels of service that are provided should therefore be affordable $the redirection of budgets, especially capital budgets, to the end users and the service provider. Decisions from the former White local authorities; about service level will be a local choice. The MIIF targets an average national distribution of 55:25:20 $increased revenue collection for services in the percentages between full, intermediate and basic levels formerly Black areas; of service over the next 10 years. Households with a basic level of service would pay a lifeline tariff which $the use of RSC and JSB levies as a recurrent source does not cover the full costs of the service. A basic for leveraging loans for capital development; level of service constitutes communal standpipes, on site sanitation, graded gravel roads, open storm water $continuation of the present recurrent grants from drains and street­lighting. national government;

Payment of tariffs is crucial to the viability and $capital grants for housing and infrastructure; sustainability of the programme, and low payment levels will almost certainly jeopardise the success of the $reasonably small annual real increases in local taxes programme and severely limit what is feasible in terms and charges in previously well serviced areas; of future investments. and

Policies directed toward upgrading the informal urban $the possible sale of assets may provide a useful peripheries need to take into account that the addition to this. un­serviced nature of the periphery allows for an affordable base to be established within an urban area. The Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework The imposition of significant costs could well represents a set of policy guidelines and a statement of jeopardise the access of some households to an urban national intent regarding a long term and systematic livelihood. Mobility patterns within the urban areas investment framework. demonstrate the movement and displacement of the very poor from backyard shacks and overcrowded formal units in townships. Short Term Interventions

While there is commitment to ensuring systematic The Municipal Infrastructure Programme (MIP), the redistribution from richer to poorer households, there is subsequent Extension of Municipal Infrastructure limited scope for extensive redistribution through local Programme (EMIP) and the Masakhane Campaign are taxes and charges. Many poor households will two "special, transitional interventions" [RSA, 1995]. experience difficulties in paying for services in full (See Figures 3 and 4 below). The Masakhane

15 Campaign has received wide spread media coverage, among other things, at installing emergency services to which has tended to reflect that it has been floundering. informal settlements. What was significant about this However, the campaign has largely been incorrectly programme was its intent to set up a fast track perceived by the general public and the media as only mechanism to access budgets outside of the normal being about getting people to pay rent and service council reporting system. It reported directly to the charges and loans. While problems have been Executive Committee in order to deal quickly and experienced in implementing the programme, success visibly with crisis and strategic issues. Reflections on has been achieved in some communities in increasing its success by senior officials and politicians was payment levels. Turning around what has become "a uneven. Empowering a mechanism also means culture of non payment" is taking longer than expected. empowering individuals with extraordinary decision In the meantime, the crisis of local authority finances making authority which the council reporting and continues to intensify and in some cases to alarming decision making system, as bureaucratic and inflexible proportions ­ Greater Johannesburg in particular. and time consuming it may be, is expressly intended to avert. In 1995 this R92m strategic project initiative MIP and EMIP were initiated by the government to provided basic services to townships, water to 20 000 kick­start the RDP as short term, pilot programmes. people and "porta cabin" clinics in several squatter The Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme camps [reported in a Johannesburg daily newspaper at (CMIP) draws on these experiences. CMIP provides the time]. Emergency servicing has continued to be a grants to subsidise the provision of basic services to the strategy of local authorities in Greater Johannesburg. poor. Municipalities will develop infrastructure However, increasing concern about the viability of this investment plans in accordance with the Local strategy has emerged in recent times. Emergency Government Transition Act. It is anticipated that these services are financed from the operating, not capital, will combine CMIP funds with private investments and budgets of local authorities. They have become one of loans [DCD, undated b]. the primary

Emergency Servicing

Local authorities at the coal face are continuing to attempt to deal with the day to day crisis issues that face them. The Greater Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan Council embarked on a project in 1995 called "the Strategic Initiatives Programme" aimed,

Figure 3: Municipal Infrastructure Investment Programme

The importance of urban reconstruction and development as part of national transition motivated the design and implementation of the Municipal Infrastructure Investment Programme. National Government introduced once off grant funding when the RDP was launched ­ the MIP received R 750 million for the 1994/5 financial year. This budget was stretched to its capacity and an additional R600 million was made available in the following year ­ in terms of the Extension of Municipal Infrastructure Programme (EMIP). It was intended that infrastructure rehabilitation and extension should underpin the local government transition by facilitating speedy and visible improvement of municipal services and so addressing some critical needs and also laying the basis for the sustained payments of rents and services.

The extension programme seeks to achieve its objectives through two sub programmes:

­Rehabilitation of infrastructure systems and facilities that have collapsed to ensure the provision of basic municipal services; ­Extension of infrastructure systems and facilities to provide basic municipal services to new areas.

Such rehabilitation and extension of municipal infrastructure are dedicated local authority functions. Projects thus cover: water, electricity, public transport, roads and storm water, refuse removal, sewerage, land development (industrial, commercial, residential), community facilities

16 (libraries, open space development, sports facilities, community halls), health care, cemeteries, fire protection, arts and culture, environmental protection and traffic control.

[RSA, 1995 and DCD, undated a].

17 Figure 4: The Masakhane Campaign

For local governments to function effectively it is essential that boycotts are brought to an end. Should payment levels fail to rise, the government will be severely constrained in meeting the objectives of the RDP. In recognition of this imperative, the Masakhane (Let us Build Together) Campaign was jointly launched in January 1995 by the Government of National Unity, the major political parties and local government stake­holders to address service delivery and financing.

The campaign is part of government's drive to normalise governance and the provision of basic services at the local level. It aims to persuade people across South Africa to contribute to this process through participation in developing housing and services. This follows a widespread acknowledgement that if payment levels do not rise, the RDP will be severely hampered.

Masakhane is incorrectly perceived as being merely concerned with getting people to pay for rents, services and loans. Important as the principle for payment for services is, the campaign has a distinctly wider developmental purpose. Mobilising state, private sector and community resources, a major concern is to accelerate the delivery of basic services and housing. But it approaches this challenge in a fundamental way by addressing institutional, financial and other practical issues as part of a strategic work programme. Grounded in the quest for the democratisation of local government, the campaign seeks to create conditions for investments in housing and infrastructure services. It also encourages local economic development. The aim is therefore to enhance the capacity of local, metropolitan and district councils to deliver and administer services more effectively. This has to occur amidst community participation and a civic culture where citizens hold their rights dear as well as fulfilling their responsibilities.

[quoted from RSA, 1995]

items targeted in budget cuts currently under­way in the approximately 58% of all households (4,8 million cash strapped Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan households) have secure tenure (ownership, leasehold, Council. or formal rental contracts). About 9% of all households (780 000 households) live under traditional, informal, inferior and/or officially unrecognised forms of tenure, V SECURITY OF LAND TENURE primarily in rural areas. An estimated 18% of all households (1,5 million households or 7,4 million South Africans currently hold land under a variety of people) live in squatter conditions, backyard shacks or tenure systems, including freehold and customary in overcrowded conditions in existing formal housing tenure and under various forms of tenancy. in urban areas, with no formal tenure right over their accommodation. This profile of statistics must be Until recently, black South Africans were prohibited viewed critically, as populations in informal urban from registering ownership rights, and were subject to areas are fluctuating and growing and information arbitrary removal and relocation. While racially based systems are inadequate to monitor this. laws have been removed, many people still face tenure insecurity. The government's land tenure reform In South Africa it is the residents of informal programme aims to extend greater tenure security to settlements, former Atownships@, back yard shack South African's under a diversity of tenure systems areas and the formal rental sector who experience [DLA, 1997]. various

According to the Department of National Housing,

18 forms of tenure insecurity or exploitation in the urban these rights. African urban dwellers could now context. Many residents of formal residential areas do purchase new houses built by the private sector (who not have full ownership rights because many of these in gave impetus to the legislative changes in the first place former black areas have not been proclaimed. for security and financial investment reasons). Development in such communities has been constrained by the residents being precluded from In addition, full freehold ownership rights for African accessing credit to maintain and improve housing stock. urban dwellers were created by the Act in 1986 for the This in turn impacts negatively on the living conditions first time. Previous forms of tenure could be converted of back yard shack dwellers. It also imposes a heavy into ownership, provided that a township register was burden on government to maintain housing stock opened. A township register is a legal document which [Gauteng Province, 1996]. The permanence of transit describes the conditions under which the land may be areas and informal settlements was not acknowledged used by owners. A lengthy process needs to be by the previous government. Security of tenure in these undertaken by conveyancers and surveyors to do so. settlements did not exist. The township needs to be surveyed, and the plan approved by the Surveyor General, prior to opening the Upgrading inferior tenure rights in former African register in the Deeds Office. townships A procedure was created for the conversion of the Until 1978 black South Africans were incapable in law Regulation 6 and 8 rights to leasehold and for the of owning property in African urban areas. After 1978, privatisation of Regulation 6 and 8 housing stock at the property rights, in the form of 99 year leasehold, were instigation of provincial administrations in 1988 extended to black people. In townships land rights were [Emdon, 1993]. As a result of demands made by civic a subservient, un­registrable form. It was only in 1986 associations, this process was extended to Regulation 7 that African property transactions took place in deeds houses, and a process of privatising state rental stock at registries. no charge to the occupants began in earnest ­ called the Transfer of Houses process. In the Greater Area Until 1978 there were three major form of tenure in it was agreed to call a moratorium on the transfer African urban areas (called Section 6, 7 and 8 permits) process until all parties had agreed on a uniform [Emdon, 1993]. These apartheid tenure forms were process managed and controlled by all stakeholders. created under regulations passed in 1986 in terms of The process in Soweto has been underway for several the Blacks (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act. years. In Alexandra the situation is more complicated, According to Emdon (1993), none were as strong or as Alex was initially a freehold township. As a target of secure as freehold ownership. A black person, forced removals, large scale evictions occurred in the qualifying for the infamous ASection 10" rights, could past. Accordingly, in addition to the transfer of houses, only occupy a house in a black urban area in terms of a the question of restitution needs to be addressed. A permit, which bestowed a right of occupation to the further complicating factor is that many of the original, holders, issued by the municipal authority. Only certain expropriated sites are now occupied by several housing people qualified for these rights (in terms of which an units. African person "qualified" to be in an urban area). The rights applied to the buildings on the sites and not the Very little critical attention is being directed toward the sites themselves; the use and alienation of the rights appropriateness of privatisation, largely because of the was restricted; the site or the dwelling could not be historical denial of full, individual ownership to black sublet or transferred without the approval of the South Africans. The transfer of houses to people authorities. The property acquired in terms of the rights imparts a capital asset, but in some cases, if not was not mortgageable and could not act as security for accompanied by assistance, may lead to displacement loan finance. Holders of the permits could not bequeath into informal settlements of the urban poor. Those the rights, as they lapsed on the death of the permit sectors of the community who are unable to afford rates holder, although dependents or heirs had a preferred payments, or maintain the housing stock, may well sell claim on the rights. the asset to acquire capital [Emdon, 1993]. In addition, it is in many cases difficult to establish clear In 1978 it became possible for the first time for 99 year entitlement, as a result of innumerable informal leasehold rights to be held in African townships changes in tenancy and a variety of occupancy patterns [Emdon, 1993]. The passage of the Black Communities resulting from overcrowding, including the occupation Development Act in 1984 created a statutory right to 99 of more than one family of a single unit. Investigations year leasehold. It became possible to register these of "family title" ­ a special form of communal tenure ­ rights in 1986. This was the most secure form of title are under way in Soweto [Emdon, 1993]. The for black urban dwellers and was mortgageable. The Communal Property Associations Act (1996) provides a holders of regulation 6, 7 or 8 permits could obtain means through which people wanting to hold land

19 jointly or in groups can organise their tenure [DLA, 1994]. 1997]. Subletting and sharing are neglected categories of Security of tenure for tenants and "sharers" tenure, and their insecurity is seldom reflected on in policy approaches, although they play a vitally In addition to the formal, albeit lesser forms of tenure important role in accommodating people with low and accounted above, people living in squatter conditions, unpredictable incomes. The Land Policy White Paper is backyard shacks and sharing accommodation in silent on this particular issue. overcrowded formal units, have no formal rights in tenure. Tenure Security in Informal Settlements

Tenants frequently have little recourse with the Freehold tenure exists in "ordered", planned site and possibility of arbitrary removal and loss of land rights service areas. Informal rental and customary rights as tenancy relations in South Africa often operate predominate in others. In most shack areas a landlord outside clear contractual or regulatory frameworks tenant relation exists although it is illegal. For example [DLA, 1997]. a land owner may rent out land for people to occupy "informally" ­ a process known as "shack­farming". The phenomena of back yard shacking and Sometimes relations develop within the community in overcrowding in formal housing units has been alluded which access to sites is controlled by "shack­lords" in to earlier. This situation may be classified as subletting exchange for political patronage. In other cases and sharing, in terms of which individuals or occupation is against the will of the owner, of which households occupy dwelling space which is under the the northern Johannesburg cases are examples. The control of other private individuals [Watson, 1994]. In Land Policy acknowledges that many informal physical terms, the sub­letter occupies part of the settlements have existed for years and represent an landlord's dwelling or backyard shacks or outbuildings established form of vested rights in land and that they on the property controlled by the landlord (public rental, remain vulnerable to unscrupulous individuals until leasehold or freehold ownership). Sub­letters pay such time as they are brought within the ambit of the regular monthly sums to the private landlord and law. It is particularly concerned about land that has sharers may be part of the extended family of the been transacted by violence such as Awarlords@ who landlord who pay for their accommodation in forms take advantage of desperate land hunger to lead land other than cash (fuel collection, domestic labour, social invasions and establish their own system of extortion relations) [Watson, 1994]. [DLA, 1997].

Watson (1994) makes a useful legal distinction between Recent Trends and Some Indications of Innovation formal and informal rental. In the case of the former, an individual or household rents an officially approved Against this backdrop, the government establishes second dwelling from a resident landlord. Informal security of tenure as the cornerstone of its approach rental occurs where the sublet space is a backyard shack towards providing housing to people in need. This is or a room within a house. This relationship may be clearly reflected in the housing policy as well as the technically illegal if the shack is in violation of Land Reform Programme. One of three core thrusts of building regulations, if it involves the subletting of the latter is tenure security under diverse forms of public rental housing or if the sublet unit is tenure. The elevation of individual private home unacceptably overcrowded. Furthermore, there is little ownership above other forms of secure tenure is access to affordable legal channels to deal with rejected by the government in the Housing White conflicts with land lords. However, the Residential Paper. Landlord­Tenant Act was promulgated in April 1997 in Gauteng. It provides for the regulation of In accordance with this subsidy policy is designed to landlord­tenant relations in order to promote stability provide for the fullest range of tenure options: in the residential sector in the province. The legislation puts in place general principles governing conflict and ­individual and project based allocations of subsidies establishes a landlord­tenant dispute resolution board. for individual ownership purposes

The numerical significance of this form of tenure ­subsidies for collective social and rental housing nationally is uncertain. A 1993 survey in six formal African urban townships in South Africa estimated that ­project based consolidation subsidies which make 55% of the surveyed population were renters and available supplementary grants to approved sharers ­ 40% lived in backyard shacks and 15% were projects where serviced sites only were tenants within the formal dwelling [quoted in Watson, previously provided by the state or with state

20 grants. approaches and mechanisms. The system does not accommodate other tenure arrangements for the benefit The Land Policy White Paper establishes that tenure of black poor (and especially rural) people [DLA, reform will: 1995a].

­establish legally enforceable rights to land South Africa has a variety of informal land transfer systems, operating outside the formal land registries, ­build a unitary non­racial system of land rights based upon customary tenure or on existing freehold sites. Many of the tenure arrangements that do exist are ­allow people to choose the tenure system appropriate not officially recognised. The informal transfer systems to their circumstances. are often based on patronage, and in many cases discriminate against women. The benefits of In order to deliver tenure security a rights based registration need to be extended to alternative forms of approach has been adopted. This means that tenure tenure, especially communal and group tenure. reform processes must accommodate the de facto vested rights existing on the ground, in order to avoid the The administration of land registries needs to be heightened insecurity and dispossession of the most unified, to bring into line inferior or lesser land vulnerable [DLA, 1997]. Given the particularly registration systems with various distinctions between complex nature of tenure reform, however, the different forms of title and separate and racially based Department of Land Affairs is giving itself a two year administrations. period for the formulation of tenure reform policy. This is presently a largely rural focused process. VITHE RESPONSES BY VARIOUS URBAN The Communal Property Associations Act enables ACTORS communities to acquire, hold and manage property under a written constitution. In urban areas, it may be Housing delivery and land access in the past have been used to regulate housing associations and other severely constrained by an institutional framework that collective forms of tenure. The administrative support is fragmented, duplicative and apartheid based. The necessary for the functioning of communal and group housing function, for instance, was separated between tenure will be however need to be created, including racially based administrations and racially defined systems of registration at local level. Many laws and geographic areas. Such duplication and overlap resulted customs relating to property rights, marriage and in confusion, inefficiencies and wastage. The inheritance need to be reviewed, amended or repealed, importance of multi sectoral and multi departmental to ensure gender equality. coordination cannot be over stressed.

In the context of in situ upgrading, the new New Institutional Arrangements Development Facilitation Act makes provisions for the conversion into ownership of informal and unregistered The South African Constitution gives national tenure arrangements existing among the occupants of government responsibility for implementing land existing informal settlements. It also creates a new tenure and land administration reform. In addition, it is form of registerable title called "initial ownership". up to national government to ensure a more equitable This form of tenure may be converted into ownership at distribution of land. Provinces and national government a later stage in the development process. However, in have concurrent competency to legislate housing, the absence of regulations this section of the DFA is not regional planning, and urban and rural development yet operative. matters. The Constitution also provides for a national over­ride in certain circumstances. It is the Land Title Registration responsibility of provincial government to provide complimentary development support (such as the South Africa's system of freehold tenure generally provision of infrastructure). Local authorities have provides clear legal protection for tenure rights, and is constitutional functions pertaining to land use and backed up by efficient and accurate deeds registry and planning. In terms of customary law, traditional surveying systems [DLA, 1997]. Although South authorities carry out some land related functions [DLA, Africa's sophisticated land surveying and tenure 1997]. registration is internationally renowned, most people are forced to acquire land outside this formal system The role of the state as enabler and facilitator is [RSA, 1994]. The system has adapted to new forms of clearly stated in both the RDP and the Housing tenure such as time share and sectional title, but does White Paper. South Africa's new housing policy and not yet cater to the variety of housing delivery strategy, embodied in the latter, reflects the

21 commitment to implement policies and strategies that projects (including ensuring their ongoing management will redress the socio economic realities of the and maintenance). relatively large proportion of poor people in South African society: Government is constituted in three distinctive, interdependent and interrelated spheres (as opposed to "Where people, due to socio economic adversity, are hierarchical tiers) ­ national, provincial and local. not in a position to afford access to secure tenure, Local government is firmly mandated to be basic services and basic shelter, society in general developmental, way beyond the traditional and narrow and the state specifically has the responsibility to service provision role. The developmental duties of address this situation within the resource and other local government include budgeting and planning, constraints applicable to it" [RSA, 1994]. promoting both social and economic development, and structuring and managing its administration [DCD, The responsibility of the state is to ensure conditions undated LED]. The Housing Amendment Bill conducive to the delivery of housing within the context establishes that local authorities can be accredited (in of the widest variety of delivery mechanisms and to terms of criteria to be determined by the Minister) for assist the poor in particular to enable them to be the purposes of carrying out the national housing adequately housed. The policy and strategy establishes programme [RSA, 1996b]. The municipal planning that the state can act as deliverer through appropriate requirements (Land Development Objectives and structures at the second (provincial) and third (local) Integrated Development Plans) give local authorities tier government levels. powerful statutory instruments to strategically plan with and for their local areas. The state at national level has produced a range of new policy frameworks in keeping with its role as setter of In the MIIF it is recommended that institutional norms and standards for development. It is envisaged responsibility for infrastructure provision within an that provincial governments play a critical role in urban area rest at local level, and that the form of local ensuring effective and sustained housing delivery at programmes be determined by local governments who scale within the overall institutional, legislative and would design their programmes within the context of constitutional framework and national policy guidelines. the institutional and financial frameworks and other Powers and functions will need to be balanced to reflect criteria set out in the MIIF. (Provided of course that different lines of accountability. The Ministry of the local government is "competent", not just in terms Housing is accountable to Parliament for overall of the statutory powers conferred on it, but in terms of sectoral performance, while provincial governments are its capacity ­ financial, institutional, technological, etc.) accountable to the people who have elected them in provinces [RSA, 1994]. Many local authorities have capacity constraints, in addition to financial constraints, that inhibit their Responsibility for Urban Development ability to deliver. In order to overcome these, local authorities should explore working in partnership with Responsibility for decision­making on important urban the private sector with a view to private investment in strategic matters is often complicated by the variety of and provision of a service; perhaps private management authorities, at various tiers and with different (often of a service utility that the public sector owns, private radically divergent) constituencies and allegiances. financing of public infrastructure investment, or one of The creation and sustaining of democratic local a number of other combinations. government structures, with responsibility for both advantaged and disadvantaged urban areas under The criteria suggested by the MIIF to local authorities, conditions of rapid population growth, was expected to that should guide their consideration of alternative remove an important constraint to land release. provision mechanisms, include:

Urban municipalities have in the past mostly been $efficiency in the use of resources and in targeting to responsible for a range of services characterised by needy communities; long­established levels of service and norms of regulation and of payment. However the new $competition between services suppliers for the right to democratic local governments are expected to drive supply a service; sustainable development programmes addressing poverty and a range of attendant issues. This places a $ensuring equitable access to services and perhaps also very different focus on local government. In particular, some measure of cross­subsidy; it must now be able to inclusively undertake development planning and pursue this further through $the service provider being accountable to the people it realistic programming and budgeting of identified serves, either in the form of a local

22 government to its electorate or a private supplier to government through the terms of The role of the private sector the contract. The housing policy framework indicates a commitment Coordination between different spheres of government to mobilising the capacity, skills and resources of the with urban development functions is clearly required, private sector coupled to the utilisation of limited state but notoriously difficult to achieve when internal resources to achieve maximum gearing with non state coordination and sectoral integration remain out of investment and delivery [RSA, 1994]. The participation reach in many cases. Bodies which represent the of the emerging black construction sector is prioritised, collective concerns of all municipalities (such as the to bridge the gap with the largely white controlled and South African Local Government Association) should owned formal construction sector. The almost facilitate cooperation between different spheres of insignificant level of end user finance to people who are government, as municipalities around the country are the target of the different income categories of the able to present their views and needs through their subsidy programme is of concern. The government is provincial associations [DCD, undated b]. accordingly committed to enabling a more conducive environment to counter the lack of investment in low Responsibility for Housing Subsidy Allocation income areas, which are perceived as unlawful environments in which contractual rights and The Housing Arrangements Act established a National obligations are not enforceable. In addition, specialised Board in 1993 to advise government on issues of lenders are being set up to supplement and compete national policy and the amalgamation of funds and with the efforts of major banks. institutions previously separated. Provincial Housing Boards have since been established in each of the nine ADraw down" subsidy arrangements have now been provinces. They have a similar policy advisory role at introduced in terms of which progressive payments can the provincial level and are tasked with the additional be made to developers after completion of specific responsibility of receiving and approving applications phases of construction. for the national housing subsidy in terms of agreed to criteria. Public private partnerships have become increasingly favoured in public policy. For example, in municipal The boards are composed of representatives from three infrastructure delivery the notion that better quality and sectors of stakeholder groupings; consumer more extensive services can be delivered by involving organisations and community based groups; suppliers the private sector, than by public sector transformation, and financiers of housing goods and services; and is fairly widely supported. Recent objections (from regulators ­ the government interest in housing. The public sector unions, amongst others) to privatisation provincial boards are accountable to provincial arrangements are opening up the terrain for the legislatures, but it is arguable that the public sector, as consideration of alternatives such as corporatisation. an equal stakeholder, has too little say over the types of projects that are approved. The role of communities

In Gauteng the Provincial Housing Board came under Government is committed to the participation of fire for failing to release subsidy funds. The experience communities in meaningful and structured ways in of the Rapid Land Delivery Programme is instructive in identifying needs, prioritising and planning. South this regard ­ it points particularly to the difficulty that a Africa has a strong tradition of civil society local authority like the Greater Johannesburg participation. A significant constraint that has emerged Transitional Metropolitan Council had in pursuing since democracy is the loss of experienced and skilled integrated development. The board was concerned that CBO leadership and NGO staff to the public sector. As the TMC in identifying its sites, did not follow national a result, many CBOs are struggling to articulate needs policy guidelines, by consulting inadequately with and priorities. In addition, the transition from communities already in existence next to proposed new confrontational to collaborative strategies has proved developments. The board was also apprehensive that difficult to make. It is becoming clear that in a more the TMC did not provide a "blueprint" for the kind of developmental environment, community interests are development it envisaged on the sites. The TMC, on not nearly as harmoniously defined. In the apartheid the other hand, deliberately kept quiet about which land regime, communities were able to organise themselves had been earmarked, fearing that development could be around shared experiences and a set of common goals, scuppered either by an outcry from local residents or by although this was frequently moderated (in some cases invasions of the land, which would derail attempts to violently) when development resources were introduced. resettle communities it has identified for priority The Alexandra Case Study below demonstrates the resettlement. fallacy of a homogenous set of "community" interests,

23 and the challenge that participative development release sufficient, suitable land at an appropriate rate activities and organising strategies now face. It may have been a reflection of political unwillingness illustrates the complexity of social, political and and blockages in the regulatory framework in the economic dynamics internal to a community. apartheid era, a more thorough analysis is now required. Several components of a preliminary analysis are suggested below. VII PRESENT OPTIONS AND ALTERNATIVES REGARDING URBAN LAND ACCESS Increased financial pressure is being experienced by many municipalities. The problems of unfunded The preceding sections have registered significant mandates and changing economic bases of many cities achievements since the national elections in April 1994 have been identified as key problems in this respect. which impact in a variety of ways on urban land National and provincial government have been cutting management. A process of constitutional reform has back on transfers to municipalities, without cutting occurred at national and local level as well. Elections back on the functions that municipalities have to paved the way for national and provincial institutional perform. The increasing relocation of economic activity reform and the fundamental transformation of urban from city centres and residential urban sprawl have policy. A uniquely participative and open process of both contributed to revenue losses for large cities. new policy formulation had preceded the elections in the negotiations phase of South Africa's transition. This Local government capacity to deliver is arguably one of formed the starting point in many cases of new policy the most significant constraints. As was evident from guidelines. The period since elections has been marked the northern Johannesburg case studies, negotiations by a series of White Papers embodying principles, and mediation were successful tools used by programmes and delivery targets, discussion papers for government officials in the resolution of conflict and in public input and comment, consultative conferences the pursuit of common ground. The benefits of a locally and the passage of numerous pieces of legislation. The negotiated project solution should be noted. However, enabling national policy framework should not be much depended on the ability of local government to under estimated. The election of local councils augurs act decisively in the identification of new land. In one well for the localisation and implementation of case the newly appointed metropolitan council acted successful urban development programmes within the swiftly, expropriated land, designated transit areas and national policy framework. installed temporary emergency services. In others, temporary arrangements have been made for invaders In reviewing present trends in new urban land policies in unoccupied buildings. that improve the access of the urban poor to land and housing, a major critique has been the lack of visible The interim nature of the local government programme and project implementation that arrangement presented unique difficulties. On one hand meaningfully addresses issues on the ground. While new and inexperienced councillors were dependent for some of has been due to a fledgling national democracy, information and expertise on senior officials who, in it also relates to the slow transition at local level. some cases, saw their positions as precarious and had However, preliminary insights can be drawn on more to lose in taking decisive action. Appointed enduring obstacles, bottlenecks and more fundamental councillors, on the other, may have taken the most risk constraints. In what follows, an attempt is made to averse, rather than courageous and potentially identify and constructively analyse these in order to unpopular decisions. Whatever the underlying rationale, reflect positively on present options and alternatives the effect was a hiatus in decision making in many regarding urban land management. There are however instances, rather than the much awaited for political success stories at the programme and project level that direction and clarity. have been reflected in the preceding sections. These are indicated and their generalisable lessons drawn out. In addition, many of the human resources capacities residing in the bureaucracy required redirection to new Constraints to Land Release priorities. The redeployment of staff was slow to take off. In addition, the skills and resources of existing Although the GNU established a target of 1 million professionals were now required for a very different houses in five years, concerns continue about the ability focus than before. While the election of local councils to release suitable land at the required rate and scale. bodes well for security and decisiveness, the process of The mismatch between land supply and demand is not change management has impeded service delivery. new. However insufficient dents have been made in the backlog in most provinces ­ other than new policy The demarcation of new boundaries meant that new which has not yet translated visibly into geographic areas were included in some municipal implementation on the ground. While the failure to jurisdictions for the first time. This had implications for

24 the data base and knowledge of local conditions. The subsidy category. creation of a single, unified metropolitan council in Johannesburg out of disparate, apartheid based and In the second instance the progressive notion of the separate administrations impeded progress on day to social compact came under fire recently for day operational issues. Finally, the lack of clear representing a stumbling block to speedy delivery. Once definition of roles and responsibilities represented a again the RLDP demonstrates how vested interests have further barrier to headway. The Local Government come to be entrenched through the rigorous application Transition Act, in which powers and functions of local of the social compact criterion. government found expression, left much room open for debate, especially in the metropolitan areas, where Proof of an inclusive social compact agreement was a powers and functions had to be allocated between criterion for approval of a RLDP applications (and in metropolitan and local councils. fact for all subsidy applications). The compact formation process entails a process of mediation or While much of this appears at first glance to be facilitation in which the major parties with an interest particularly a phenomenon of the period prior to local in housing and development in an area are brought government elections, the process of administrative together to form an agreement over the project ­ its reorganisation has taken some time to sort out. Local conception, design, implementation and post governments have been challenged to deliver to their implementation consolidation [Appleton et al, 1994]. constituencies on the promises of the RDP in the context of high expectations, as well as being faced While there can be little argument with the principles with a set transformation priorities. These include the of inclusivity, commitment to democratic procedure integration of councils and the concomitant and skills mixing and transfer, it became increasingly amalgamation of infrastructure and staff; directing clear that institutionalising the project agreement in resources to urban poor communities without provoking this way proved to be a stumbling block to progress in a backlash from middle class residents regardless of the early stages. For instance, the propertied classes race; dealing with the pressure that municipal workers adjacent to proposed new, well located vacant land are bound to bring to bear on newly elected identified for affordable housing development, are able representatives; promoting a culture of payment under to exert their interest in maintaining the status quo by conditions of mounting council debts; generating their refusing to buy into the process ­ even where the local own revenues; and building the administrative capacity authority has identified its own land for development. in townships to bill accurately and regularly, collect This effectively halts development before it has even payment and process defaulters. begun. It also renders attempts at spatial integration ineffectual. The contention here is not that the While it may seem obvious that democratically elected participation of adjacent communities should be politicians should be "in power" to make decisions, they scrapped, but that the public comment and objection are in several important respects not being opportunities contained in township establishment "empowered" to do so. Two brief institutional points procedures may well provide sufficient recourse for will be made to substantiate this, both of which are such interests. In addition the integrity of the principles arguably reflections of a "pre post­apartheid" mind set. underlying the social compact notion should be preserved, through evidence of the competency of the In the first instance, the Provincial Housing Boards in mechanism, rather than demonstration of its cooption some provinces have an ambiguous relationship to their by vested interests. respective provincial legislatures. In some cases it would appear that lines of accountability run to the Responses to Land Invasions National Housing Board, paving the way for maverick interpretations of housing policy and inflexible The unfavourable light in which land invasions are application of allocation criteria. Furthermore, local viewed is clearly demonstrated in evidence from the authorities are even less likely to influence decisions Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan area and the around project allocation of the national housing Gauteng province. The enormity of apartheid's housing subsidy, with which these institutions are tasked. The backlog poses one of the most significant challenges to RLDP is instructive in this regard. The Housing reconstruction and development. Democratisation has Amendment Bill provides for accredited local given rise to high expectations, after years of apartheid authorities to take responsibility for housing discrimination and neglect. On one hand there are programmes. In a context where the developer led, households who are waiting patiently for delivery of project linked subsidy option is the most frequently the RDPs promises. On the other, some households used type of application, it has been very effectively have organised (or have been organised) and taken being channelled, via the housing board, to private matters into their own hands. developers, who seldom deliver to the lowest income

25 Opposition stems from the position that invaders are for their name or community to come up in an invisible queue jumpers in the process of housing allocation, and process of allocation. Fair processes of resource that invasion hampers planned, programmatic allocation should be both realistic and transparent and responses of the new government to address the land most important, be seen to be delivering to those most and housing question within a just and equitable in need. framework for resource allocation. While there can be no argument with the integrity of this position, it has Those now in power were once, very recently, at the not been accompanied by an indication of what this helm of organising land invasions. While invasions "waiting list" is, who is in on it, or where they are in were once, very recently, an organising strategy for non this queue. Neither is there a coherent development statutory forces in South Africa, in opposition to the framework to guide decision makers and prioritise apartheid state, they are now potentially the turf of resource allocation yet in the GJTMC. (It is not yet adversaries to the new ANC led metropolitan council. clear what effect the recent formulation of Land There are indeed indications that this has been the case Development Objectives in Greater Johannesburg=s in invasions in Johannesburg. This poses a challenge to local councils will have). the design and implementation of programmed land release initiatives. It is possibly also a threat to the The administrative, not to mention political, enduring support of the newly elected politicians. Land complexity of putting an allocation policy in place invasions were also a survival mechanism, an action of could well have been a factor in the delay in pursuing last resort, in the apartheid era. They continue to be so this policy matter. Consider the overcrowded conditions today for many. in formal township areas, manifesting in subletting and sharing in backyard shacks and inside formal houses, Furthermore, there are indications of racketeering in and small pockets of informal settlements in often the illegal sale of land by people posing as landowners environmentally hazardous and unsafe areas; the large and encouraging people to settle on and Aacquire" land and increasing swathes of freestanding informal for a fee. The seeming security that this bestows on new settlement areas, some of which require relocation to land "owners" is fundamentally exploitative and clearly relieve geo­technical, social or political crisis and untenable. It requires that the due process of law take others of which require in situ upgrading; people on its course. waiting lists for public rental in council flats; new arrivals to the city from rural areas and Southern Africa The sophism of "land invasion management" is evident and finally, those living in hostel accommodation. from these experiences. Although invasions are particularly a phenomenon that is informal and Redressing the legacy of apartheid requires prioritising unregulated, policy makers and officials continue to the needs of those who have been historically talk of managing the problem. The Reception Areas disadvantaged on the basis of race. Increasingly Programme in Gauteng Province is an attempt to however, it is the material economic dynamics of class provide alternative land for those who are evicted from and income that are defining insiders and outsiders. strategic, government owned land. Two such projects Viewed in sub continental terms, it is also those who, have been established in Greater Johannesburg ­ one in subjected to the destabilisation of their countries in the the far north at Diepsloot and the other in the far south apartheid era, are seeking refuge in the relatively at Wieler=s Farm. In the absence of such programmes, resource and opportunity rich urban areas of Gauteng. adequate networks of communication (to inform In the absence of clarity and communication, land potential invaders of why they must wait patiently, for invasion is the de facto allocation process. what and for how long), and adequate clear delivery mechanisms which release land fast (to demonstrate to Demonstration of land release has not been attendant people that they are not waiting in vain), land invasion on the opposition to land invasion and the queue management is a formula for evictions without jumping hypothesis. The Rapid Land Delivery alternatives. Programme, initiated by the Gauteng Province, is an attempt to couple a firm hand on land invasions with Whilst dealing with an inherited and inadequate system demonstration of government's commitment to dealing of land release, it may be that an alternative approach with the problem of landlessness and homelessness, to land management provides some solutions. In through rapid delivery of sites to those in crisis particular, while a move away from "ad hocism" is situations. While this, and the subsequent Mayibuye justifiable, too long a time lag between policy and Programme, are arguably the most progressive and programme design and implementation, will only innovative attempt at dealing constructively with the exacerbate the situation. What is needed therefore, is a dilemma, both programmes have not delivered as more flexible and incremental approach to settlement quickly as anticipated. Without evidence of delivery, planning and servicing ­ arguably a paradigm shift in there is little rationale for some to sit and wait patiently the practice and teaching of development planning.

26 response from local government ­ one which generally Opposition to land invasions on technical grounds is results in the inception of a new vacant land project. based on the tenet that invaded and informally settled The alternative of regularisation is seldom pursued for areas are much more difficult and cost inefficient to reasons which vary from technical difficulty (such as plan and service. On the other hand, costs entailed in unsuitable layout, too high densities) to political / surveillance, security and legal procedures are administrative preferences (such as a preferred extensive. This is seldom recognised. The necessity for non­residential land use for the site) and illegality post settlement planning and regularisation should be (such as private land owners unwilling to negotiate). acknowledged and the capacity (skill, experience, know Those informal settlements without such pressures tend how) requirements should be identified and developed. to be left unattended, with the possible exception of Given the near absence of such responses in the policy emergency services provision. framework, it is likely that the trials and errors of practice will oblige local decision makers to confront The relative weight to attach to "greenfields v. this reality, or face the possible absorption of the upgrade" is potentially a subject of intense debate, inadequately housed and landless into alternative especially with the enormous national housing delivery support bases. target to be met. Clearly a more appropriate strategy is one which facilities a number of options. This will A diversity of approaches, including a clear policy require however, an understanding of informal on upgrading settlement dynamics, the creation and sustaining of appropriate expertise and the establishment of an The housing policy endorses supporting a wide variety unambiguous set of national policy guidelines. of delivery approaches: Dealing with other forms of regularisation: the "... A process of consolidation and upgrading must recognition of subletting and sharing form an integral part of subsidising housing projects in order to ensure that the housing situation of all The generic characteristics of South Africa's townships but especially the poor, continuously improves" have been addressed in an earlier section . It has been [RSA, 1994]. pointed out that subletting and sharing have received scant policy attention in both the national housing and While this, and other policy positions, acknowledge the land policies. In policy terms, this omission requires existence of informal settlements and the need to support for rental housing. In project terms, the upgrade them, policy implementation tends to be biased upgrading and regularisation challenges are legal and toward the development of new housing and vacant physical in nature. However, any upgrading land. At the outset, this report has asserted the need for intervention should proceed cautiously in order to take an unambiguous and coherent policy on regularisation. into account the social dynamics in these areas, like The Development and Planning Commission represents mutual support networks and fragile survival strategies. an opportunity to investigate and put in place a clear approach on areas that have been settled prior to While South Africa's housing policy promotes servicing and in popularising an understanding of "non individual home ownership and collective or group linear" developments. tenure, it is relatively silent on the rental option. While not derogating from the upgrading of inferior tenure Priority demands in these areas include internal rights, a priority privatisation initiative in Soweto and integration, greater complexity and intensity of use, Alexandra (the Transfer of Houses process), integration into the metropolitan area through supporting the rental sector is advanced as a significant improved transportation and communication, upgrade element in expanding the supply of shelter and in of housing and infrastructure, creating activity spines maximising choice. and corridors and application of alternative forms of tenure provision and alternative layouts [Hindson et al, An enabling approach should seek to ensure that rent 1993a]. Some of these interventions should be the control is avoided and building standards which subject of a longer term metropolitan planning discriminate against rental housing are removed. More framework, while others demand priority, short term specific actions to stimulate rental could include responses. financial assistance to those who want to add on to their homes for rental purposes, the provision of credit In Greater Johannesburg, greenfields projects tend to be to small developers for investment in rental housing the Adrivers@ of local land development processes, not and facilitating the creation of tenant cooperatives because of highly planned, programmed and proactive [Watson, 1994]. public sector approaches. Rather, pressures from existing informal settlements tend to demand a reactive Although subletting is a less than acceptable form of

27 accommodation in terms of South Africa's housing democratic elections loom in 1999. It will also be vision, it plays, and is likely to provide for some time to important to monitor the effect of the macro economic come, an important option for the urban poor. This is strategy on RDP­type objectives. With particular not to detract from the need for state assistance to the reference to land access, the effects of the new poor, or to privatise this function. Rather, it is a integrated development planning requirements, the pragmatic recognition of reality, and an attempt to progress of land reform in urban areas, attitudes to land enable the operation of subletting as one of a choice of invasions, evictions and land release, and, possibly housing options which provides particular advantages most importantly, the ability of local government to to the urban poor. become both more developmental and more efficient, are important processes to watch. It has been suggested by Watson (1994) that subletting households be included in the subsidy scheme in the longer term. This is an area of inquiry that deserves further investigation. Other support mechanisms may include legal recognition of subletting in the common law through lease agreements; infrastructure and facilities provision that make more realistic population assumptions; location of basic water and sanitation services that promote accessibility to sub­letters [Watson, 1994].

The conundrum of releasing additional land for housing once again raises its head when addressing high occupancy and dwelling unit densities in these circumstances. Any de­densification strategy would need to provide additional land for settlement to avoid displacement and marginalisation. In addition it should be mindful of the difficulty of regulating and enforcing building standards and levels of occupancy. Unintended consequences of such approaches include the promotion of informal rental, avoidance of formal approval processes and un­affordable rental for the subletting poor.

Another component of regularisation in these circumstances is addressing the lack of security around quasi legal alterations and buildings. The adoption of yard improvement programmes, land swops and land readjustments as mechanisms to assist in the upgrading of high density areas with inadequate services and a mix of formal and informal dwellings, should be investigated in the South African context [Hindson et al, 1993c].

VIII CONCLUSION

In the months ahead South Africa is likely to see an ever increasing push for delivery as the second

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Appleton, C. Hindson, D. Swilling, M. 1994, Social Compacts and the Project Cycle, National Housing Central Witwatersrand Metropolitan Chamber, 1993, Forum, Johannesburg An Interim Strategic Framework for the Central

28 Witwatersrand, Document 2: Policy Approaches, prepared by GAPS, Johannesburg. Hindson, D., Mabin, A., Watson, V., 1993, Additional Report 2 ­ Facilitating Mechanisms, Report to National Department of Constitutional Development, undated a, Housing Forum Working Group 5. The Municipal Infrastructure Programme Progress Report, Local Government Series. National Housing Forum, undated, Working Group 1 Status Report: Existing Constraints, of whatever Nature, Department of Constitutional Development, undated b, that Currently Hamper the Identification, Assembly, Local Economic Development, Local Government and Release of Appropriate Land Series. Republic of South Africa, 1994, White Paper: A New Department of Housing, July 1997, Press Release: Housing Policy and Strategy for South Africa, Statistics Show Steady Increase in Housing Delivery, Government Gazette, Pretoria. Pretoria. Republic of South Africa, 1994, White Paper on Department of Land Affairs, May 1995, Land Policy Reconstruction and Development, Government Gazette, Framework Document, consultative document Pretoria.

Department of Land Affairs, August 1995, Draft Land Republic of South Africa, 1995, The Urban Policy Principles, document prepared for the National Development Strategy of the Government of National Conference on Land Policy, 31 August ­ 1 September Unity, A Discussion Document, Ministry in the Office 1995, World Trade Centre, Kempton Park, Gauteng. of the President, Pretoria.

Department of Land Affairs, October 1995, Preparation Republic of South Africa, 1995, Municipal for Logical Framework Analysis Workshop, Infrastructure Investment Framework, Ministry in the memorandum circulated to participants. Office of the President and the Department of National Housing, Pretoria. Department of Land Affairs, April 1997, White Paper on South African Land Policy, Department of Land Republic of South Africa, 1995, Development Affairs, Pretoria. Facilitation Act (Act 67 of 1995), Republic of South Africa, Pretoria. Department of Land Affairs, August / September 1997, Land Info, Department of Land Affairs, Pretoria. Republic of South Africa, 1996, Growth Employment and Redistribution: A Macro­Economic Strategy, Emdon, E., 1993, "Privatisation of State Housing" Ministry of Finance, Pretoria. Urban Forum 4:2. Republic of South Africa, 1996, The Local Government Gauteng Province, 1995, Gauteng Rapid Land Delivery Transition Second Amendment Act (Act 97 of 1996), Programme, Policy and Implementation Manual, Republic of South Africa, Pretoria. Departments of Development Planning, Environment and Works and Housing and Local Government, Republic of South Africa, 1996, The Housing Johannesburg. Amendment Bill.

Gauteng Province, 1996, Gauteng Responses to the Royston, L. 1992, A critical Study of Communities Green Paper on South African Land Policy, prepared by involved in the Struggle for Access to the Lauren Royston, issued by the Department of Witwatersrand Development Planning, Environment and Works, Johannesburg.

Hindson, D., Mabin, A., Watson, V., 1993, Status Report to Working Group 5: Restructuring the Built Environment, National Housing Forum.

Hindson, D., Mabin, A., Watson, V., 1993, Urbanisation Processes, Patterns and Dynamics: Implications for Urban Restructuring and Housing Policy, Report to National Housing Forum Working Group 5, phase 1b.

29 Region, South Africa, Planact, Johannesburg, submitted to HIC and IDRC.

Royston, L. 1995, Report to the Department of Land Affairs: White Paper Technical Process, Land Development Section.

Royston, L. 1996, Review of the Rapid Land Development Programme, report prepared for the Gauteng Department of Development Planning, Environment and Works, Johannesburg.

Royston, L. 1997, SDC Land Reform Policy Monitoring and Evaluation Report 2, prepared for the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, Johannesburg.

Urban Foundation, 1994, Urban Land Invasion: The International Experience, UF Research, an executive Summary, Johannesburg.

Watson, V., 1994 "Housing Policy, Subletting and the Urban Poor" Urban Forum 5:2.

Wolfson, T., 1991, AAccess to Urban Land@ in M. Swilling, R. Humphries and K. Shubane (eds) Apartheid City in Transition, Oxford University Press, Cape Town.

NOTE i.The following section has not been updated since the first draft in December 1995. It is largely based on a section of a technical submission by Lauren Royston to the Department of Land Affairs for the Land Policy Green Paper. The assistance of Kevin Wall in the drafting of that section is gratefully acknowledged.

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