by Ronald Eglin

Afesis-corplan has been advocating for a ‘width’ or Land First approach to settlement development for a number of years.  One example of the land first approach, called ‘managed land settlement’, involves government providing (basic) serviced land with secure tenure for people to occupy and built basic temporary accommodation.   Over time, government can then go back and help these people improve their neighbourhoods and houses by providing further services and top structure subsidies. The upgrading of informal settlement programme is another example of a land first approach but is not discussed further in this article.  

Table 1 below helps to compare this land first approach to the ‘packaged house’ or traditional RDP type housing development where government provides households with title to a serviced site and a starter house.  The table, for simplicity purposes, assumes that there are 20 people living in ‘shacks’ and then compares, for both the ‘packaged house’  and ‘land first’ approaches, how many people at the end of each year are living in either a shack, a basic house or a formal house.  The table assumes that there is only enough money each year to build four full houses.   It also assumes that the cost of a ‘basic’ house is one fifth the cost of a full house.  Using the 2008/9 national housing cost estimates for services and top structure of about R61 300/ site, this means there would be about R12 260 for basic development.   A full house includes the cost of the land, full services, individual ownership and a RDP type top structure.   A basic house is a self built house built on a planned plot with access to a basic level of services and some form of tenure security.    

Table 1	Packaged house			Land First
YEAR	Living in shacks	Living in basic houses	Living in full houses	Living in shacks	Living in basic houses	Living in Full houses
Year 0	20	0	0	20	0	0
Year 1	16	0	4	0	20	0
Year 2	12	0	8	0	15	5
Year 3	8	0	12	0	10	10
Year 4	4	0	16	0	5	15
Year 5	0	0	20	0	0	20

In both approaches, the ultimate goal is for all 20 people to be living in full decent houses after 5 years; it is just that each approach has gone about achieving this in a different way.  What this table clearly shows is that in the land first approach, all 20 people are able to occupy the land after year 1 with no people remaining in shacks.  In contrast, in the ‘packaged’ house approach, after year 1 only 4 of the 20 people have land (and services and house) with the remaining 16 people still living in a shack.  Even in year 4, in the packaged house approach, there are still 4 people living in shacks.

The major advantage of the land first approach is that right from year 1 all 20 households have security of tenure and basic services.  They feel that they are recognised citizens of the city living in dignified conditions, no longer feeling the need to ‘toyi toyi’ demanding that they be immediately given a house.  Using Buffalo City Municipality (BCM) as an example, the backlog of houses is conservatively estimated at just over 40 000 houses (BCM Land Management Policy 2007), but could be as high as 75 000 (BCM Housing Policy 2004).  The City has set itself an ambitious target of producing about 4000 houses a year (from about 1300 in 2007/8 financial year).  Following the packaged house approach it will take over 10 years to remove the backlog.   Using the Land first approach (assuming basic development at a fifth of this cost), all 40 000 households could be occupying secure land with basic services after 2 years.

One of the main challenges that emerge from the adoption of such a land first approach that needs to be addressed if it is to be successful is that large amounts of land at the project scale need to be found, right at the start, so that all people can be accommodated in year 1.  For the packaged land approach, smaller portions of land can be made available each year with fewer houses needing land each year.  Effectively this means that large portions of project scale land needs to be in the hands of ‘intermediaries’ like municipalities or communal property associations right from the start, either in terms of outright ownership or in terms of some form of land availability agreement with the present owner of the land.  The intermediary also has to ensure that the necessary bulk services are available and that environmental and town planning approvals are obtained.

We do not want a situation where people are waiting to move onto land as part of a land first project without the necessary approvals and agreements in place.  Organisations like the Housing Development Agency (HDA) and the National Department of Land Affairs will have to re-prioritise human and financial resources towards sorting out these land assembly pre-conditions, even if it means temporarily shifting personnel from other sections in these organisations to address these urgent land packaging issues.

We do not want a situation where in the haste to find land, larger portions of cheaper land on the edge of urban areas are purchased and people then struggle with transport to get into town. A range of innovative solutions that need to be explored to overcome these challenges include:

• Make additional funds available for the purchase of more expensive well located land.  The new Land Acquisition for Sustainable Settlement grant from the Department of Land Affairs is an example of where this is already accommodated. There is no ceiling on how much money projects can apply to for land purchase as long as it is well motivated. Funds are disbursed on a first come first served basis until all funds available for that period are allocated.

• Introduce land banking initiatives where land is bought in advance of need, when land prices in more peripheral areas are still low, even if there are no immediate plans to use this land.   The HDA can play an important land banking role but more localized land banking solutions, by for example municipalities, also need to be explored.  In such scenarios municipalities can start to link these future development areas into their public transport plans, so that people who live in these areas in future have access to the city.  Plans can also be put in place to direct investment in new schools, health facilities and other facilities and services into these future development areas.

• Conduct pilot land pooling and readjustment programmes where municipalities and development agencies facilitate a process where a number of different land owners in an area pool their land into one larger project scale parcel of land, that is then developed by the state, with bulk and basic infrastructure, and sub divided into settlement plots. The original land owners then get back a smaller portion of the land they originally owned that is now equal in property value to the land they originally owned. The ‘surplus’ land can then be used for land first type initiatives.

• Introduce the proposed inclusionary housing programme to get the private sector and higher income residential and commercial developers, as part of their approvals processes, to help subsidise the purchase and development of land for lower income housing.

• Explore and pilot different ‘value capture’ techniques that are being promoted by organisations like the Development Action Group. This include both fiscal tools like modifying property tax legislation so that it discourages excessive land speculation, and makes sure that any value captured is redistributed in service of the poor; and regulatory and planning tools like incentive zoning where for example commercial property ‘developers’, in exchange for some community benefit (e.g. a community hall), are provided with density bonuses that allow them to have larger building floor areas then would be allowed under the normal zoning scheme or plan.

• Speed up the release of state and parastatal land for settlement development purposes. This has been on the drawing boards for a number of years but has not gained momentum. Some sort of high level ‘investigation’ is needed to investigate how any challenges to the release of state land can be overcome.

We also do not want all the poor to be located in large monolithic ‘ghetto’ type townships, so it is important to make sure that lots of smaller pieces of land within existing higher and middle income areas are also identified; and that within the land portions that are developed other forms of housing such as middle income bonded housing and social housing is also accommodated.

By its nature, land first type approach tends to support lower density “one-house one-plot” approaches because it is difficult for poorer households to self-build multi-storey or row houses. In well located land situations, you would need to reduce plot sizes so as to increase the number of people who can benefit from locational advantages.  There may then be a need to include other elements into what is defined as basic services such as fire walls along certain boundaries, and the provision of ‘safety deposit boxes’ where people can store valuables.  If even higher density housing is sought, the provision of only land and basic services may not be enough.  Consideration may need to be given to, for example, medium density walk up “shell” apartments, with communal ablution facilities.

Environmental and town planning approval processes must not be allowed to unnecessarily hold up settlement development processes. Municipalities, with the encouragement and support of the Department of Environment Affairs, need to start doing city or area wide Strategic Environmental Assessments which allow municipalities to proactively determine the most suitable type of development for an area before development proposals are formulated.  Once land suitable for land first type development is identified, each separate project should be exempt from having to do separate Environmental Impact Assessments. Municipal planning departments need to get ahead of the game by dealing with zoning and sub division issues prior to land being needed.  Land can be sub- divided into larger sub-divisional areas that can then be allocated to future housing projects where more detailed internal layout plans can be prepared at a later date.

Land first projects must also not be delayed due to difficulties in coordinating all the various funding streams needed to implement such an approach.  Examples of the different departments that are involved include the Department of Provincial and Local Government through the Municipal Infrastructure Grant for bulk services; the Department of Land Affairs for some of the land purchase costs; municipalities themselves for other land purchases (where they have their own funds); and the Department of Housing in instances where projects are unable to source funding for land and services from other sources; and some other department (is it the Department of Housing, Local Government and Traditional Affairs or maybe even Water?) for basic services.    Having multiple departments involved makes it difficult to hold any one department accountable when things go wrong, or praise them when projects are a success.

One department needs to be held accountable for making land available, at least to a ‘basic’ standard as outlined in the land first approach, for settlement development purposes. The responsible department could be the Department of Land Affairs, building on its new Land Access for Sustainable Settlement Grant; the Department of Housing, building on its new Housing Development Agency that aims to help unlock land for settlement development purposes; or it could be the Department of Provincial and Local Government, building on its role in promoting the use of Integrated Development Plans at a municipal level, and funding support through Municipal Infrastructure Grants.  The various government departments need to sort out between themselves who this responsible department will be.

The Transformer Vol. 15 No. 2 Apr-May 2009