MANDLA RADEBE writes:
It was shocking to read how the Gauteng Housing MEC snubbed the community and their concerns about the planned Esselen Park housing development.
This issue dates back to Mondli Gungubele’s mayoral term at the Metro. Talks of a court challenge emerged at that time and AfriForum mentioned they would take part in it.
Also read:
• MEC rejects residents’ objections to Esselen Park housing development
• Residents to seek legal action against Esselen housing development
The then MMC for housing ignored all the letters pleading with him to at least address the community on the issue. In one meeting I attended, a Metro representative and the municipality’s consulting firm representative were there.
Two questions were, for me, never answered or were poorly responded to:
• How many schools and of what level (primary or secondary) are going to be built?
• Are the schools going to be built before families move in or long after everybody has been settled?
The consultant had no clue and the Metro representative ducked both questions. Why is this important?
The area in question has two high schools and a few primary schools. If you take it as wide as home addresses of the pupils that attend the two high schools leaving out pupils coming from areas like Tembisa and Phomolong.
That perimeter is enormous but those schools don’t receive infrastructure funding as they are supposed to be fee-paying schools in an affluent area. The buildings are falling apart, schools are receiving less revenue because of the increase in the number of indigent parents.
The classes, in some instances, are 2.5 times the ratio they’re supposed to be.
Having lived in that area in excess of ten years, I have never seen a new school being built but I have seen more than ten housing developments. But MEC Maile has the nerve to disregard the community’s requests to talk to him just because he can.
He claims that ‘this development is in line with the surrounding land use’. Bad joke! Low-cost housing next to an established suburb can never be in line with the surrounding land use. The groups of suburbs in that area have, over many years, accumulated value that can never fit the description of low-cost housing.
So the community has a point in raising this concern, having invested in their dwellings.
He further claims that ‘the Public Participation Process undertaken was adequate and in compliance with applicable legislation and policies’. It is ironic and hypocritical that the ANC always brag about being the caring government.
No public participation should ever be closed until every question and concern are answered and addressed, not box ticking. That statement is a glaring display of a middle finger, let alone caring.
Regarding basic services falling ‘within the mandate of the local authority’ and therefore should be attended by the Metro, he is disingenuously irresponsible. As a provincial head of housing, he logically should be taking the municipal structure with him in addressing these issues.
Basic services emanating from a huge project like this overlap between province and municipality. The municipality has been dodging questions about the issue already, but Maile wants us to talk to a clueless, unwilling and toothless structure that will send us from pillar to post.
No surprises there is no logic in government.
This consultation should be widened to Norkem Park, Van Riebeeck Park, Terenure and Birch Acres. Everyone is affected.
Maile, Masina and company want this at all cost and they will stop at nothing. The Metro’s finance MMC Xhakaza has just tabled a budget which he termed a ‘pro-poor budget’. No problem with that but to a suburban community it means we don’t stand a chance and will probably never be considered for anything, not even a listening ear.
