Urban Land Issues in Contemporary South Africa
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No. 87 URBAN LAND ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTH AFRICA: 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 Johannesburg 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 Sophiatown 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 Gauteng 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