According to the latest council minutes, the Ministry of Local Government had ordered the reduction of primary schools to 3,5 hectares with council resolving to apportion the remainder to residential stands.
Debating during a full council meeting held at the council chambers recently, councillors said the idea was a noble one as it would give the city an opportunity to reduce the housing backlog.
The current waiting list in the city has been pegged at over 100 000 people.
“If the reduction of these schools gives us an opportunity to address the housing backlog then it should be applauded but we must ensure that these stands go on to benefit those people who are on our waiting list,” said the deputy mayor, Amen Mpofu.
To date the council has pegged 40 residential stands within what used to be part of Mahatshula Primary School.
“Due to the shortage of residential stands for medium density housing, the town planning branch had therefore prepared a residential layout with a total of 40 residential stands being created and (the plans) circulated to other Municipal departments, the stands will be in line with other Mahatshula residential stands,” reads part of the minutes.
Meanwhile councillors have expressed displeasure at the local authority’s move of allocating development land to property developers instead of developing the land themselves in an effort to reduce the waiting list.
The councillors said while it was to their advantage to issue more land to property developers it was going on to affect them negatively as these developers went on to disburse these stands to anyone who could afford them – without necessarily allocating according to the housing waiting list.
Recently residents accused the property developers of quoting high prices for houses and stands, which make home-seekers prefer to apply for stands through the local authority’s housing department.
“While we appreciate the allocation of this land we should instead be allocating these stand with the hope of trying to reduce the housing back log, it thus does not carry any logic if we continue identifying more land but instead of giving it to our residents we go on to allocate it to these property developers who obviously will not sell the stands according to our waiting list,” said Councillor Jennifer Bent of ward six.
“Our residents are paying yearly subscriptions with some of them having done so for the past 20 years and we keep on benefiting from these subscriptions instead of striving to play our mandate of giving them the stands,” she said.
Mpofu said he understood that councillors were fast losing faith in property developers due to the number of bogus developers cropping up in the city, but assured them that the council was working on making it mandatory for developers to abide by the waiting list.
Recently the local authority announced its intention of engaging controversial property developer, Alpha Constructions, owned by Jonathan Gapare – despite the company having had its licence cancelled by the local authority in 2007 after it allegedly swindled desperate home seekers by failing to construct over 60 houses more than two years after people had paid for them.
Post published in: News