Housing in Southern Africa October 2015

77 Cosmo Cities and much more….. At the Human Settlements Developer and Contractor Workshop media briefing, Minister of Human Settlements, Lindiwe Sisulu has promised to fast track housing and the new 77 catalytic projects will be based on Cosmo City. North of Johannesburg, Cosmo City was the original blueprint for Human Settlements first fully integrated housing development. Housing

P ilot projects such as Cosmo City and Cornubia in KwaZulu- Natal are shining examples of mixed use and integrated develop- ments. The projects of scale offer different housing typologies and includes components of retail, com- mercial, light industrial, schools, clin- ics, transport nodes, police stations, community centres and recreational facilities. The Minister and her teamare cur- rently in the adjudication process to determine the breakdown of projects across the nine provinces and the timelines for the roll out. Another key factor in the hous- ing roll out is the Finance Linked Individual Subsidy Programme (FLISP). It is aimed at providing low income earners such as nurses and policeman, who earn too much to qualify for government subsidised housing, to buy their own homes. She admits that there were hitches in the systems, the subsidy programme unfortunately has had a number of challenges because of the capacity

challenges to roll out the programme and the approval turn around period. This subsidy has the potential to cre- ate massive housing opportunities in the Gap and Affordable housing market. It has not yet performed but with money once again allocated in the housing budget for this subsidy programme, this is about to change when the Minister officially announc- es the new Housing Finance Corpo- ration. The new state-owned entity will, she says, be formed before the end of October this year. The existing government development finance institutions will fall under the new body and will be led by the National Housing Finance Corporation. She

says, ”We are re-engineering our DFIs so that they can respond to our needs and perform.” Sisulu also added that government has concluded agree- ments with labour to introduce a gov- ernment housing scheme for lower in- come earners. This is being assessed and will involve Public Service and Administration and the banking sector. With the housing sector stakehold- ers, developers, builders and contrac- tors firmly behind the Minister, she says, “We are extremely excited about these projects. Banks are willing to lend andwe need to ensure that there is affordable stock. We have done a great deal of work to get on track.” ■

October 2015