Investors urged to build low cost housing units

THE Legal Assistance Centre (LAC)’s land, environment and development lead researcher Willem Odendaal says investors need to focus on low-cost housing to address the current land crisis.

During an interview with The Namibian, Odendaal said the recent Affirmative Repositioning action by suspended Swapo youth leader Job Amupanda, is a sign that the situation should have been addressed a long time ago.

“We should have started tackling this issue a long time ago. Now it has become a crisis,” he said.

Affirmative Repositioning is the brainchild of Amupanda and two other youth leaders – George Kambala and Dimbulukeni Nauyoma – who allocated themselves land in Kleine Kuppe last year.

Odendaal, however, said although there is a huge interest in low-cost housing, it is a pity that such facilities are not made available on a larger scale. Those in construction do not want to invest in low-cost houses.

“The biggest need is to provide for low-income people. Even middle-income people are struggling to buy houses now,” he said.

Odendaal said the problem was that investors would like to make quick profits, instead of addressing the issue of housing for the poor.

He said although government has not pronounced itself on Amupanda’s Affirmative Repositioning – which is an illegal act, “police will respond swiftly should the youth occupy up-market suburbs”.

In December last year, Swakopmund residents illegally marked off municipal land, saying they planned to erect shacks on the plots.

In Windhoek alone, informal housing has been on the rise with the municipality saying it discovered that 1 614 leased erven were unprocedurally occupied.

During its council meeting last month, the municipality said informal settlers will soon receive lease agreements from the Windhoek municipality as part of the City’s strategy to improve systems and operations.

Odendaal said a quicker way of addressing the current shortage of housing, especially in Windhoek, is for the municipality to work with the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement to look at areas that should be developed as the current supply is lower than the demand.

Last month, Swapo Party secretary general Nangolo Mbumba denied that government has not pronounced itself on Affirmative Repositioning.

Mbumba said: “We want people to respect the law of the country, we have suspended those who grabbed the land. So it is no longer an issue of Swapo only.”

He also said the party was waiting for investigations to conclude.

Toni Hancox, LAC director said it should be kept in mind that property rights are protected by the law and that grabbing land is illegal.

However, Hancox said the fact that the land issue is brewing is a serious matter and should be dealt with by government as a priority.

“It appears that proper planning was not done to cater for the high influx of people from rural to urban areas since Independence and this has now become a boiling point,” she said.

Hancox further said the lower income population has also not been catered for when it comes to the supply of housing. While these issues now form the topic of legislation and policy, there is a huge delay in implementation.

“It stands to reason that taking property unlawfully has the potential to destabilise the country and therefore we would urge government to pull all the stops to address this very real concern in the lives of many Namibians,” she advised.

Amupanda said Affirmative Repositioning will move to other towns by the end of this month.

“We are now ready to take the AR sharp tongue and land gospel to other towns. Indeed, there will be no town that will be left unattended,” he said, adding that on 27 February 2015, fearless youth and many landless people will submit land applications to various municipalities and town councils across the country.

“Having known and followed the mass action of 21 November 2014, other towns cannot claim ignorance in thinking that it is only a Windhoek affair. As such, the due date for all other towns will remain the same as that of Windhoek, 31 July 2015 – after which we are very clear and decided on what will happen.”

Just last week, it was reported that Namibia topped the Knight Frank Global House Price Index last year, according to the latest issue of the FNB Housing Index. Namene Kalili, senior manager research and development at FNB Namibia said that Namibia recorded an annual price growth of 16, 7%. He said the growth was attributed to Namibia’s inability to meet the growing housing demand despite numerous government interventions to increase housing units. tuyeimo@namibian.com.na

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