Reclaiming deserted buildings for housing

Towards the latter part of 2009, Minister of Housing Settlements, Tokyo Sexwale announced that thousands of low-cost houses across the country which are financed by government would have to be demolished due to poor workmanship. This illustrates a number of problems regarding  government’s housing plan. In the first instance, it highlights the fact that, up to now, government has employed a very poor plan of identifying developers involved in delivering houses to the poor. Perhaps more alarmingly, this also indicates a general lack of care on the part of government in spending tax-payers’ money. Now more money has to be allocated towards the rebuilding of these houses while the poor are left waiting. In my previous blog post (Housing Proposition) I highlighted the need for government to show more innovation regarding its housing strategy. One such innovation, in my view, is the idea of reclaiming deserted buildings and working closely with those city councils under whose jurisdiction such buildings may fall. Essentially, at the heart of the building reclamation strategy would be the delivery of flats as opposed to conventional single unit houses which has been government's main focus so far. I must hasten to add that proper care would have to be taken in identifying buildings suitable for reclamation, with a specific focus on the structural soundness of any building chosen for reclamation. Johannesburg, like many other cities around the country, has many old buildings (similar to the one in the featured photo) which have been abandoned for one reason or another. There are a number of reasons why I think reclaiming deserted but structurally sound buildings would make sense for government.

Advantages for Buildings Reclamation

The first advantage is that of financial efficiency, presumably the cost of modifying such buildings for housing use would be less costly than building houses from scratch on virgin land. The second reason would be increased speed of delivery, presumably converting an existing single structure which can house many households would result in more houses being delivered. In this government would be delivering many houses under one structure as opposed to individual single houses built from scratch. Thirdly, presumably such deserted buildings would have had some form of link and access to both the water and electricity supply grids, it would therefore merely be the question of reconnecting these buildings back to the grids. Lastly, because most of these deserted buildings are situated in the central business districts of the major towns and cities, it would mean the poor would be living in close proximity to their places of work, thus reducing their costs of commute.

Reclaiming deserted buildings is by no means the only solution to South Africa’s housing problem but it is indeed one option that our government needs to explore, if we are to deal with the problem effectively.