approach to inclusionary housing now more flexible
28 May 2007
The National Housing Department is expecting to finalise its proposed inclusionary housing policy by the end of next month.
It also wants to introduce legislation to assist municipalities in implementing the policy.
A draft policy on inclusive housing is being negotiated between the housing department, commercial property association Sapoa and other stakeholders.
The government’s proposed inclusive housing policy aims to set aside a percentage of new developments for affordable housing. As a result of the negotiations, two approaches have been put forward by the government — a voluntary, proactive deal-driven approach and the town planning-compliant approach.
Housing director-general Kotsoane said the voluntary approach would generally be applied to state-owned land, and the town planning-compliant approach to private land at the level of rezoning applications with municipalities. Explaining how the voluntary approach could work when applied to state-owned land, he said the state would set aside prime land for housing developments. This land could come from parastatals and government agencies.
Kotsoane said the department could say to a developer that state-owned land was available for residential development purposes but with the condition that the developer set aside a percentage for low-income housing. This approach was voluntary because the developer could decide to what extent he wished to transact with the government.
Kotsoane said that as far as the town planning approach to privately owned land was concerned, it would be applied, for instance, when a developer wanted to change the use of land from business to residential.
“If a developer seeks to have his own land rezoned from one use to the other, he will have to show to the municipality that the application for the change of land use is intended to have the effect of inclusionary housing.
He said the incentives would vary and that the treasury would have to be brought on board to implement them. These could take the form of tax benefits, for instance.
Kotsoane said the inclusionary housing policy was “on the last draft now” and was about to be finalised. He said the policy would be presented to Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and housing MECs this week.
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Nick Wilson, www.businessday.co.za