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Housing project 'still lagging'
04/07/2007 08:36 - (SA)
Cape Town - The national housing department's N2 Gateway Pilot Project in the Western Cape has so far managed to hand over only 812 completed units, project manager Prince Xhanti Sigcawu said on Tuesday.
When the pilot project was launched in 2005 the initial target was to deliver 22 000 houses at six sites within 18 months.
However, Sigcawu said, it was important to note that close to 2 000 units were completed or near completion.
Some of them were just missing windows, he said, because of fears of vandalism and these would be put in later.
Meanwhile, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu announced at a Cape Town press briefing on Tuesday that the department hoped to change its original project target and build between 26 000 and 30 000 houses by 2010.
The budget for the project had been increased from two billion rand to three billion rand.
There had been many challenges and lessons learnt during the housing project, Sisulu said.
These include persuading people in informal settlements to move to allow development, various costing issues, and creating racially and economically integrated communities.
Among the first resident of the first completed housing developments in Joe Slovo were coloured families whom, she said, may be the first coloured families to move into Langa.
The Joe Slovo area would be the first neighbourhood in the country where recipients of free houses would live alongside people who were renting and the owners of bonded houses.
"The value of the N2 Gateway Pilot Project is in the houses that are built, and the knowledge that is being acquired will save money when similar projects are undertaken elsewhere in the country," Sisulu said.
- SAPA
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