A City plan for a housing project on the corner of Kromboom Road and Seventh Avenue in Rondebosch East has drawn public outrage.
The City says it will apply to rezone seven hectares of municipal plots, which are currently zoned as single residential and public open space, and sell them off to a developer to build 800 “residential units”.
According to the City, these will be in a combination of duplexes, three-to-four-storey buildings and five-to-10-storey tower blocks with 500 of the 800 units allocated for social housing and the rest for the open market.
The development would include retail opportunities, the City said, adding that a traffic-impact study was being finalised and the proposal was expected to go out for public comment in September or October.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis hailed the proposed development as part of the City’s push to release land to prioritise affordable housing.
“In the first two years of this programme, we have already released sites with a yield of over 4 200 affordable housing units, including in Cape Town’s inner city and other well-located economic nodes,” he said.
Faizel Bardien, steering committee chairperson of the Civic Association of Rondebosch East, said such a development would likely aggravate traffic congestion as there were more than two schools in the area.
“The residents are very much concerned about the potential negative effect the development of 800 residential units plus commercial trade will have on the area in view of congestion, overcrowding and security.”
Rashard Davids, from the Lansdowne Rondebosch Neighbourhood Watch, said they were not against social housing, but they had doubts about whether the corner of Kromboom Road and Seventh Avenue was the best place for it.
“If there are 800 units and each unit perhaps consists of a family of four, it can be over 3000 people moving to the area,” he said.
Traffic congestion was already bad along the routes to schools between Imam Haron Road and Kromboom Road, he said.
“The City wants to overcrowd a densely populated area. There are not many available job opportunities, no new places of business so people need to take transport to leave the area for work.”
Zelt Marais, who has lived in the area for more than 30 years, said: “Is the mayor able to determine how traffic is going to flow in this already congested area?
“Why can’t the City rather invest in a community centre or sporting facilities to upgrade the area for the people.”
Residents are already unhappy about the City’s plan to auction off a 10-football-pitch-size parcel of public land on the corner of Smuts Road and Windsor Road in Lansdowne (“Lansdowne low-cost housing plan hits flak,” Southern Suburbs Tatler, May 9).
