The City’s R34.1 million, 1.6 hectare Morningstar Breaking New Ground housing project was launched in 2017 to benefit 664 people from Morningstar who were on a municipal waiting list
Morningstar residents who claim to have registered for subsidised housing more than a decade ago are unhappy that they are being allocated houses in a Fisantekraal housing project instead of one in their own community.
According to a resident, who wishes to remain anonymous as he fears speaking out might hurt his housing application, a list has been circulating online naming those, including him, who have been allocated housing in the Fisantekraal project.
“Someone told me that they saw these names posted on a notice board in Fisantekraal and now people are starting to forward these names on WhatsApp,” he said.
The City of Cape Town says it is aware of the list and those named are indeed applicants selected for possible inclusion its Greenville Phase 4 project in Fisantekraal, which is in the planning stage.
“Homes are currently being handed over at the Greenville Phase 3 subsidised housing project in Fisantekraal. Over the coming months, additional homes will be handed over to qualifying beneficiaries. This project will provide approximately 4 000 housing opportunities, social housing, financed linked houses and commercial opportunities once it is completed,” said mayoral committee member for human settlements Malusi Booi.
The combined cost of Phase 1 and 2 of this project was R247 million, with Phase 2 being completed in August 2020.
When Northern News asked the man, who lives in a wendy house behind his mother’s house, how he felt about the prospect of leaving Morningstar for Fisantekraal, he said: “I can walk to my work from here, and now I have to travel so far from Fisantekraal? Here in Morningstar your children can play freely, they can’t play free there. Now they want to remove us without talking with us first to say what they’re busy with. Is that right?”
The man said he had registered, in 2006, for housing in Morningstar and he felt it was unfair that he hadn’t been allocated a house there because he had heard of people who had applied after him getting homes in the Morningstar Breaking New Ground site.
“The guys who have received houses all applied in 2013, 2017, 2018 and these are the houses at the Morningstar Breaking New Ground project. So how’s that possible? There wasn’t even a public participation meeting with the community at the Morningstar civic hall to say what’s going on.”
A woman from Morningstar, who also wished to protect her identity, said she had applied for housing in Morningstar about 15 years ago with her late husband who died in 2020.
“I’d prefer to stay in Morningstar, but if there’s no other option, then I will have to move to Fisantekraal if I can get a house there because if I refuse, I won’t get a house again,” she said.
The City’s R34.1 million, 1.6 hectare Morningstar Breaking New Ground housing project was launched in 2017 to benefit 664 people from Morningstar who were on a municipal waiting list (“Morningstar gets RDP housing,” Northern News, March 2 2017).
Asked why some beneficiaries had to wait so long for a house, Mr Booi said applicants were selected for housing opportunities based on the date that they had registered.
“The cut-off date reached in the source areas selected for a project depends on the project size and applicants are considered in date order.”
Delays in issuing title deeds to the beneficiaries had been out of the City’s hands, he added.
“Title deeds came out in batches from the deeds office at a time frame which is outside of the City’s control. It took less than 12 months from the time the first beneficiaries moved into their houses for the title deeds to be issued.”