Community involvement trends in the housing development processes in a selected township in Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess Community involvement trends in the Housing Development processes in a Selected Township in Cape Town, South Africa. Democracy that was conceived in 1994 in South Africa brought about changes in all the spheres of government regarding provision of basic services such as affordable, basic housing and shelter. Notably, the Bill of Rights provides for protection of human rights by acknowledging participatory democracy where all citizens make decisions in matters affecting them. Participation builds an informed and responsible citizenry with a sense of ownership of government developments and projects. It allows municipalities to buy in and develop partnerships with stakeholders. Community participation is a concept often mentioned in community development. Participation in some other local areas comes at a price: local democracy is challenged when stakeholders with diverse interests are tasked to provide basic services and affordable human settlement in other areas in the Western Cape. Similarly, while elected councillors make the ultimate decisions, residents should be consulted as for as possible. Involvement of service providers such as private companies in the provision of RDP houses raised questions for the communities such as Khayelitsha. It is believed that government is unable to have all the resources that make the provision of houses successful; hence there are challenges that were experienced during the process. Among the challenges, community participation was limited. Other constraints were structural problems emanating from the legacy of the apartheid housing design and provision of land. A mixed method approach was employed in order to collect data using both qualitative and quantitative instruments. The primary source for data collection comprised in-depth focus groups, interviews, questionnaires and observation. The sample was extracted from the population of local beneficiaries of Khayelitsha Township, in the Western Cape. In this study, the researcher explored diverse views from literature reviewed, perceptions and opinions of local residents and beneficiaries of low cost housing; regarding their engagement in housing development projects in their area of jurisdiction. Findings from this study revealed that there was limited involvement of the community members in housing development in Khayelitsha. Challenges were experienced by community members; such as limited participation, lack of information on housing development, limited land on which to build low-cost houses, lack of transparency and accountability on the side of the private companies. The study recommends that national and provincial government need to adopt a participatory development approach towards the implementation of housing developments in order to accommodate the community’s views and enable them to benefit in the process when they raise their voices.