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Housing Options in Alexandra
Two key conditions in Alexandra demanded a different approach to
housing from that delivered through the State’s low income housing
scheme. Typically, the State’s housing programme delivers a detached
house on serviced land in a newly developed neighbourhood, transferred
to the new owner through freehold ownership. The first challenge in
Alexandra was the extreme shortage of land for new housing delivery in
and around the project area, particularly since the revised strategic
direction adopted in 2005, which aimed to have no further relocations
of people from Alex to other parts of the city. Limited land therefore
had to be utilised much more effectively by raising housing densities.
The second issue was recognition of the heterogeneity of residents of
Alexandra and their priorities, questioning the suitability of
ownership as a universal tenure model. The Alexandra Renewal Project
(ARP) has therefore crafted a range of physical, tenure and management
typologies to meet the housing needs of a diverse group of poor people
in a dense, well-located urban environment.
The K206 project, for example, substantially increases
densities, and in addition combines ownership with rental
accommodation. This layout directly replicates the ‘yards’, which
typify the old part of Alexandra. Access ways and courtyards around
which a number of living units are clustered, some formal houses, some
more informal rooms and shacks characterize the yards. The new project
provides a double story house for ownership to an eligible beneficiary
with, in addition, 2 separately accessed rooms, which share a toilet
and shower. These rooms are controlled and managed by the homeowner
and are rented out to tenants. Six to eight of these owner-occupied
houses and their associated rooms are clustered around a defined yard,
creating a sense of enclosure and semi-private space, and contributing
to the urban quality of the neighbourhood.
The K206 is a technical name which hints at the land’s former status
as a road reserve, now no longer needed and secured for housing
instead – enabling a large, innovative development of 3000 units of
different tenure types. By building a double story unit (thus reducing
the footprint) and attaching 2 rented rooms the 80m˛ site provides a
yield of 145 units of different tenure types per hectare. The ARP
believes that this is a creative response to the challenge of both
increasing densities and meeting the diverse housing needs.
The second innovative project consists of ‘520 affordable rental
units’. This project provides 2-story clusters of rooms-for-rent,
each cluster organized around a common recreation space and sharing
communal ablution facilities. Each cluster is made up of 4 buildings,
each with 10 rooms for rent located around a courtyard space. This
model both learns from and aims to match the affordability and
convenience of the backyard shacks run by private landlords in Alex.
Not only are higher densities achieved than in conventional state
housing, but also the rooms provide an affordable and flexible living
quarters for a variety of more transient personal circumstances.
Demand for this accommodation is strong.
The project has a strong environmental ethos. Each building
incorporates solar water heating and water harvesting tanks. The
grounds are landscaped with indigenous plants as well as with fruit
and nut trees. Space has also been planned for urban agriculture.
Strict access control, public lighting, courtyards with surveillance,
equipped play areas and community facilities help ensures that the
environment will be safe for both woman and children. In addition
certain blocks have been designed to ensure wheel chair accessibility
and all community facilities are disabled-friendly.
These two examples provide what the ARP sees as an affordable
alternative to ‘shack dwelling’. A survey undertaken in 2005 found
that some 30% of households in Alex would choose not to invest their
housing opportunity within Alexandra. These include single person
households, and households that still have strong linkages back to the
rural areas. Their needs may best be served by access to affordable
and safe rented rooms. The other side of the rental story is that it
has been dubbed ‘the business’ of Alexandra. Julian Baskin, current
Director of the ARP, recognises that:
“We cannot intervene in programmes such as shack relocation without
understanding the role that these structures are playing in the local
economy…there is resistance to an upgrade that will alter the existing
landlord-tenant relationships in which landlords earn income from
renting out space”.
The K206 project in particular recognizes the importance of rental
income to small-scale landlords, and also some of the institutional
advantages of localized and decentralized management of tenants.
A third project is known as the RDP flats. In this, ‘give-away’
units, similar to the state’s standard low-income house, are
configured into a walk-up apartment block. Like the freestanding units
the tenure for each apartment here is ownership but through sectional
title. The excellent location of these units, close to retail and
transport hubs, is maximized through much more intensive use of the
site than is usually achieved through the standard freehold title
option.
The ARP has also had to respond to the stark reality of several vast,
over-crowded and poorly maintained single sex hostel complexes. In
aerial images of the Alexandra area these huge, brutal structures
stand out in contrast to the fine-grained texture of the dense pattern
of houses and shacks. Not only are the hostels in dire need of
physical overhaul, they are tainted by association with the notorious
migrant labour system of the apartheid years.
In line with the democratic state’s policy for hostels, the ARP is
creating social housing, a term used in South Africa to denote
family rental accommodation run by housing institutions. In addition,
however, the ARP has recognized the needs of some hostel dwellers for
smaller accommodation units for single or two-person households. A
series of one-room apartments have therefore been created, each with
their own ablution facilities.
Other housing projects in Alexandra are closer in nature to
conventional state-provided low-income housing, but with some
innovative aspects.
The Extension 7 project, for example, creates higher densities
than usual through reducing plot sizes down from 250m˛ to 80m˛ and by
attaching units by a common party wall. These row houses on either
side of the street enhance the spatial definition of public space.
Active programming is in place to ensure that households soften the
urban environment through greening of the small yards. In addition
some 70 housing units have been specially designed for people living
with different disabilities.
But the key attraction in this area has to be its prime location right
next to the new station of Johannesburg’s first rapid rail link,
currently under construction.
Perhaps more than anything the securing of this space for the poor
demonstrates the commitment of the ARP to maximizing the many
opportunities of Alexandra for the benefit of its existing
inhabitants.
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