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Oversights, Omissions and Ownership Visions: State-funded Walk-up Housing in Johannesburg

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Housing in African Cities

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Abstract

The South African government has introduced a new building typology in its programme of home-ownership for the poorest households. Consisting of low-rise blocks of flats, this built form brings with it the need for collective management of the common area, space usage and behaviours in and around the complex. However in the case study we review in Johannesburg, no institutional mechanism was ever established for this, and impoverished residents have been left to muddle through on their own. Confusion, neighbourhood tensions and attempts at localised forms of management have ensued. This chapter traces the governance dimensions of this post-occupancy situation, but also the governance arrangements, and lapses, that allowed this organisational vacuum to arise. We reflect on the limits of public-private-partnerships that are revealed through this case study.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Those who qualify for the maximum government housing subsidy, ie monthly household incomes USD 215 or less.

  2. 2.

    ‘RDP’ housing is slang for state-funded housing for the poorest of the poor, its introduction associated with the first post-apartheid government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme.

  3. 3.

    The affordable housing market in South Africa refers to the market that is not generally catered for by the conventional private mortgage market of the banks and is not eligible for most of the state subsidies (Butcher, 2016). It is also called the gap market and has been defined either by income, as people earning ZAR 10,000 to ZAR 16,000 a month, about USD 600-USD 1000, or houses that cost below ZAR 600 000 or USD 36,000.

  4. 4.

    The official unemployment rate in SA is 34.5% with the expanded unemployment i.e. people able to work but not actively looking for a job is at 45.5% (SANews, 2022).

  5. 5.

    Also referred to as policy network theory (Enroth in Bevir, 2011).

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Acknowledgements

Our thanks to Anthony Mafela for research assistance, and to reviewers for their helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Braamfontein, South Africa

    Sarah Charlton & Neil Klug

  2. School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK

    Margot Rubin

Authors
  1. Sarah Charlton
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  2. Neil Klug
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  3. Margot Rubin
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Correspondence to Margot Rubin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Margot Rubin

  2. School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Sarah Charlton

  3. School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Neil Klug

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Charlton, S., Klug, N., Rubin, M. (2023). Oversights, Omissions and Ownership Visions: State-funded Walk-up Housing in Johannesburg. In: Rubin, M., Charlton, S., Klug, N. (eds) Housing in African Cities. GeoJournal Library(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37408-1_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37408-1_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-37407-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-37408-1

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