LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CHAPTER 2: DEFINING THE PROBLEM
2.2 The approaches to housing delivery
differences could also be related to the locational configuration of the urban grid, especially to the settlement's embedment in the global grid of the city.
continuing debates in respect to the amount of capital subsidy that should be provided by the State related to the National Economic Policy (NEP). Essentially, these debates were among economists that have favoured 'supply-side' measures to stimulate economic growth. This is known as the 'redistribution through growth' model and those that favoured the 'demand-side' measures are known as the 'growth through redistribution model'. The amount of investment required for housing from the national fiscus were seen as being of lesser importance in the former and of greater importance in the latter model (Rust & Rubenstein, 1996). The anticipated annual expenditure amounted to between R1.6 billion to R10 billion, the latter based on both the public and private provision of housing with considerable emphasis placed on rental housing.
The approach taken with the delivery of houses was just as important as the standard of housing that was to be delivered. The private construction sector had manifested their interest for mass rental housing, in which they would act as contractors. Alongside this, the communist movement continued to argue for government-provided mass rental housing, better known as Social Housing, as a preferred option to that of ownership, as they believed it would deliver a higher standard of housing (Tomlinson, 1998). Furthermore, lessons drawn from rental housing provisions around the world were used in these debates to demonstrate the financial and administrative limitations at hand.
Social housing, which aims to deliver affordable and adequate housing on a rental basis to poor and low-income people, did not receive much attention from the policy in South Africa. Only with the adoption of the BNG in 2004, did social housing become a possibility as an effective tool for urban renewal.
In terms of the incremental approach and within the post Apartheid policy framework, private sector developers would carry out the task of applying for subsidies on behalf of beneficiary communities, and in doing so would identify suitable land packages for housing projects. In addition, they would be responsible for the implementation and construction of the projects, leading to the eventual transfer of the sites to potential and qualifying beneficiaries. The role played by the private sector developers in the first years of housing delivery which followed the 1994 democratic election shows that negotiations were succumbing to the 'market-orientated' housing delivery system rather than focusing on the flaws that they felt were manifested in South Africa's 'racial capitalist housing market'. Under Apartheid this delivery system had ignored the needs
of the poor and provided no scope for the development of community organisations (Bond et ai, 1996).
In 2004, the newly elected democratic government designed the BNG policy, as a comprehensive plan to be implemented for the development of sustainable human settlements. Apart from continuing with the incremental housing approach, the revised policy directives introduced interventions that would promote higher densification of human settlements as well as the provision of medium density housing. An innovative and valuable aspect of the NHP was not only to make use of the beneficiaries building capacity for consolidating minimum standard solutions into adequate dwellings, but the recognition of the value of what had already been built, both physically and socially.
Some of the housing projects that were developed during the Apartheid regime, prior to South Africa's first democratic elections, have developed into residential areas with rich social communities. The Housing SubSidy Programme, which addressed the issue of the homeless, who were never given this initial benefit, faced difficulties in producing a significant housing consolidation process. The incremental approach was considered to be an efficient way of attaining housing for these poor communities because of the low cost involved, thus allowing for a wider coverage of houses to these people. Another benefit inherent to this approach was the fact that it encouraged greater participation and commitment by the dwellers themselves. This has been shown to result in housing initiatives that are better adjusted to the real needs of the beneficiaries and are inclusive of a greater satisfaction level among the population.
The incremental approach can thus be characterised by three main considerations.
The first is to understand the dwelling, as a set of attributes that answers different needs as required by the communities. The second is the recognition of the importance of the beneficiaries' informal resources in the consolidation of their houses. The third is the participative role of the beneficiaries in defining a solution to their own dwelling needs (Burgess, 1977). Therefore, the importance of identifying the housing attributes, understanding the nature of informal resources and building processes and eliciting the preferences of the beneficiaries, follow on naturally from this approach. As for the objectives set out in this research and because it is necessary to measure the different degrees of consolidation reached by the beneficiaries in an objective and comparable way, it is important to review the literature regarding the identification and weighting of relevant housing attributes.
2.2.1 An integrated approach to housing
It can be reasonably argued that the numerical allocation of housing subsidies cannot continue to be the main objective of the housing policies, as it does not include other important implications involved in the process. The argument follows that the poor results or inefficiency of housing policies were greatly due to a lack of understanding of the actual housing process, in particular the fact that it involves other aspects such as social and economic factors.
The importance of including social aspects in housing has been identified by many international authors and they have been widely discussed in the field. Harms (1992), for example, criticised the instruments used in the formulation of habitation diagnosis and the propositions that developed from the diagnosis, because he did not consider important qualitative aspects such as psychological, social, cultural and ethical dimensions. With the same perspective, Gilbert (1986) refers to the Chilean government's reaction of the 90s, as an inappropriate solution that encouraged individualism, thus breaking family bonds that often resulted in young people joining street gangs. Galster (2002), in a detailed analysis of housing reinvestment in two cities in America, showed that the quality of neighbourhood ties is critical. A homeowners' sense of solidarity with his/her neighbourhood is as important as the energy spent at maintaining their homes. Furthermore, the environmental and geographical variables of where the houses are located should be considered. When such patterns are not considered, the degree of dissatisfaction felt by the inhabitants may end in the abandonment of the dwellings and a slum process may unfold with rapid deterioration of the physical and social spaces. In fact, the critique of this research is based to a large degree on these observations.
At the Habitat conference of 1976 (United Nations, 1979), the three basic components that were defined for human settlements were; shelter, infrastructure and the provision of services. In addition, the physical, economic, environmental, social and cultural relations were also emphasised. Housing actions were recommended to consider the multiple relations in an integrated way and to search for an appropriate sequence according to the circumstances. Housing is not only complex because of the various external factors that interact in it, but also because of the internal complexity of the process itself, which includes the public sector, the private sector and other users that participate in it. As a way of summarising this proposition a classification scheme with
six sub-processes, each involving a set of topics considered relevant to the residential process, are as follows:
• Housing need: user, habitat
• Housing Planning: situation, policies, plans and programmes
• Housing Design: typology, norms and standards
• Housing Production: technology, productivity, production agent
• Housing Provision: financial system, allocation system
• Housing Use and Administration: maintenance, modification and deterioration
(United Nations, 1979)
As mentioned earlier, Rojas (2001) following a similar proposition studied the residential quality of the immediate surrounding in eight social housing settlements in Chile. The author argued that the quality of the space is the result of the interaction between characteristics of the physical environment and the satisfaction of basic human needs. Three main variables identified as affecting the inhabitant's intervention were property status, morphological characteristics and social organisation and participation.
The combination of understanding housing that serves the purpose of providing residential services as well as an ongoing process that improves social, economic and cultural attributes, offers a dynamic way to understanding and searching for solutions that are both proactive and progressive. Fiori, et al (2001) have developed a pioneering study that explores the basic units for social housing, as identified by a set of five basic residential requirements, this being; environmental protection, sanitation and comfort, housing independence, residential stability and social and physical surroundings.
The understanding of housing as a process that involves social, economic and cultural variables will provide the basis for the construction of the consolidation indices for this research, while the decomposition of housing attributes into operative variables and categories describing their level of satisfaction as offered by Fiori, et al (2000), will be used to test the various attributes.
2.2.2 Understanding the subjectivity aspect in the consolidation process of human settlements
Although the South African governments' approach to housing provision allows for the decomposition of the housing problem into a set of requirements or basic needs that can be understood and measured separately, it also introduces some important difficulties with regard to their measurement. On one hand, the relation of the beneficiary and his/her house can be seen as a social and dynamic relation where the family and dwelling undergo a continuous adaptation process in a family-residence cycle. The basic needs or requirements that the house should provide are not the same for all families, nor do they remain stable through different stages of the family cycle.
For example, an urgent need for one household can be of secondary importance to another, and what is of first priority to a family at a certain stage of its cycle, may not be so at a later stage. An analysis of a study undertaken by Oesyllas and Hillier (1998) on the preferences of inhabitants of different types of housing programmes showed that the evaluation of the components varied according to the residential situation of the inhabitants.
The incremental building process reflects these changing priorities as well as the scarcity of resources. Both Oesyllas and Hillier (1998) described the process as being non-linear, with a slow and irregular rhythm, thereafter, progressing to an equal level of consolidation that considers all components of the housing quality in successive building phases. This can also be understood as a strategy for answering the most urgent needs through successive minimum construction stages; when one urgent need is partially satisfied, the efforts are transferred to answering another need, which has now become most urgent. This explains the permanent 'unfinished' state of many of these dwellings.
The housing delivery process as developed in terms of the incremental approach cannot always be considered as an expression of the beneficiaries' preferences. It has to be understood that the product is strongly determined by varying fiscal resources. In fact, some important demands of the beneficiaries seldom materialise in construction activity, due to technical difficulty or high costs. A typical example of this is the location of the toilet/bathroom next to the living room, which is one of the most common complaints of the housing beneficiaries, and is rarely solved.
2.3 Aim and objective of study
The research study focuses on housing in South Africa, and the policy framework and the interventions for the creation of sustainable human settlements or neighbourhoods. The aim of the study is to provide a critical analysis of the housing delivery strategies and examine whether the current strategies as opposed to the Apartheid era strategies contribute to the creation of sustainable neighbourhoods. The issue as to why some settlements are successful in comparison to others that continue to remain in the form of a slum is the subject of this thesis. Moreover, this thesis aims to improve the understanding of consolidation processes undergone by the settlements within the Ethekwini Region by incorporating the social, economical and locational variables into the analysis for the purpose of establishing a quality built environment.
2.4 Research questions
The objective of the study is essentially to make a contribution and produce scientific data that will assist policy makers in having a broader understanding, in addressing some of the complex issues, surrounding the neighbourhood development of human settlements that are sustainable. Furthermore, that the approach taken with the delivery strategies of housing is done so in a holistic manner.
2.4.1 Main research question
If the Apartheid policies and the past housing programmes have sought to create segregation and inequality between races, why then are the strategies that have been put in place by the post Apartheid government not conducive to the creation of sustainable human settlements today? Instead, it can be argued that in many cases they deepen the segregation created by the Apartheid regime.
2.4.2 Sub research questions
•
What are the strategies that have been put in place by the post Apartheid government to create and consolidate sustainable human settlements in South Africa in general, particularly in the Ethekwini region?• What are the main differences between settlements established prior to 1994 and those developed by the post Apartheid government in terms of the consolidation process of human settlements?
• Why are the indices or variables of the consolidation processes of human settlements visible in the settlements established by the Apartheid government and not in those developed by the post Apartheid regime?
• Are the strategies that have been put in place by the post Apartheid government in terms of the creation and the consolidation of human settlements anti poor than those of the Apartheid regime?