City of Joburg moves ahead with Service Stands to allow people to build their own homes
The rapid land release programme has been adopted by all three spheres of government as an easy alternative in the provision of housing opportunities.
The Council for the City of Johannesburg has approved the submissions of the serviced stands draft policy, which seeks to address the housing backlog by providing home-seekers serviced stands to build houses for themselves.
These service stands will be provided as an option for non-qualifiers within the national housing code: integrated residential development programme, finance linked individual subsidy programme, individual subsidies as well as the informal settlements upgrading programme.
Though the provision of access to adequate housing has been largely implemented for qualifiers, a response to cater for those that have fallen in the gap due to various circumstances was identified.
The City of Johannesburg is aligning itself with the announcement by Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu that the government will soon launch a programme to provide serviced land and allow for people to build their own homes through the rapid release programme.
It is envisaged that the site and service model will go a long way in eliminating the City’s housing backlog. Service stands are stands that have permanently installed infrastructures such as water, electricity, sanitation, and roads. These sites will be ready for a top structure which is the responsibility of the owner to build their own home.
The rapid land release programme has been adopted by all three spheres of government as an easy alternative in the provision of housing opportunities.
Objectives for the policy:
1. Provide for a systematic way of administering serviced stands projects as part of incremental housing in the City for people that can build for themselves.
2. Provide a systematic process to build capabilities for the project rollout.
3. Contribute to the provision of additional housing supply and dealing with housing backlog in the City.
4. Facilitate access to land for housing development and for socio and economic activities to realise and integrated developmental approach in the City.
5. Promote land release for access to housing and spatial transformation.
