SA Affordable Housing January / February 2017 // Issue: 62 | Page 30

NEWS Creating Harmony in Cape Town The City of Cape Town and the Cape Town Community Housing Company’s Harmony Village housing project in Mitchells Plain has been lauded for its excellence in service delivery, quality and efforts to bring dignity to lower-income families. T he Harmony Village project was named the best institutional housing project in the country at the 2016 National Govan Mbeki Awards ceremony which took place at the Durban International Convention Centre on 24 November 2016. This project has enabled the provision of 850 homes to residents where the household has a maximum monthly income of R3 500. It is part of an institutional housing programme which assists those who earn too much for fully subsidised houses, but do not qualify for bank loans because their income is too low. This project is a tangible example of the shift in housing provision that the City wishes to undertake over the next few years, where far more focus will be placed on social and institutional housing as a mechanism to drive greater delivery. The City drives social and institutional housing projects through its partners and these projects are usually strongly community-driven. The aim is to increase this type of housing in well-located areas across the metro over the next decades mostly for residents who earn just more than the threshold of being considered the most vulnerable in our society. Across the metro, the City has budgeted about R230-million in the current financial year for social and institutional housing projects. “We are very proud of this recognition and I am especially thankful that our officials and partners, who work so hard, have been recognised for their excellence and willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that we move towards creating more dignified environments for our lowerincome residents,” says City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Benedicta van Minnen. “All of the projects which we submitted for consideration illustrate in some way or another how the human settlements environment is changing across the country. It shows that we need to increasingly think out of the box to meet the extreme need for housing and that we need to do so through stronger partnerships,” adds Van Minnen. The City is also very proud of its other category frontrunners: the Scottsdene rental housing project, the Langa hostel transformation project and the Bardale/Mfuleni development. All of these projects emerged as winners in the Provincial Govan Mbeki Awards, which took place earlier in September. 28 JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2017 AFFORDABLE SA HOUSING Harmony Village housing project in Mitchells Plain. This project has enabled the provision of 850 homes to residents where the household has a maximum monthly income of R3 500.