Former urban development mayco member Brett Herron says getting the City to sell the Salt River Market site for social housing was ‘mission accomplished’.
Cape Town - Former urban development mayco member Brett Herron says getting the City to sell the Salt River Market site for social housing was “mission accomplished”.
This after his complaint against the City with the office of the public protector was turned down on Friday.
Acting Public Protector advocate Kholeka Gcaleka said that Herron’s complaint lodged in 2019, alleging that the City’s immovable property adjudication committee (IPAC) “unreasonably delayed and obstructed the consideration of the disposal of the site to avoid it being disposed of for social housing, is not supported by the facts and applicable legal prescripts”.
Herron had claimed in his complaint that several of the erven that make up the site known as the Salt River Market site were identified as suitable for social housing in 2012.
The site located at the Salt River Metrorail station on two MyCiTi bus routes, and at the confluence of the Voortrekker Road and Albert Road corridors (corridors of employment and more intense development) and the City’s social housing partners were requested to submit expressions of interest for developing the sites for social housing.
The site was allocated to Communicare for development and they were to prepare a higher-density, mixed-income, affordable housing development for the site. The development was to include social housing, as defined in the Social Housing Act.
Gcaleka said Herron's allegations that the market value of five erven had increased to R114.3 million from its initial valuation of R18m had a 535% increase in value in a period of four years was “unsubstantiated”.
“The conduct of the City and its functionaries do not constitute improper conduct in terms of section 182(1) of the Constitution and maladministration in terms of section 6(4) (a)(i) of the Public Protector Act and therefore did not cause the complainant to suffer prejudice,” said Gcaleka.
Herron said on Sunday he accepted that the public protector “was persuaded by the City’s defence couched in bureaucratic excuses”.
“But the facts speak for themselves.
There’s no affordable housing on the site. In fact the transfer to Communicare was only finally approved about a month ago. Four years after I resigned because the DA blocked the release of the site for affordable housing, and there’s not a single affordable housing unit in sight. It’s taken them four years to fix an administrative error.”
Mayco member for human settlements Malusi Booi said: “The dismissal of these allegations finally puts to bed long-standing misinformation by Herron that the Salt River Market site release was obstructed.”
Cape Times