Urban Land: Whose Is It?

The purpose of this piece is to situate urban property in the context of the overall search for a solution to the ongoing land reform process.

It raises a number of issues concerning the place and role of urban land in the broader social and economic life of our society. Last year a number of people hinted at the astronomical prices of plots in a couple of readers’ letters.Sheila Jakobs, for example, took issue with the City of Windhoek on plots pricing.To which the City responded with the usual lousy excuses of either lack of plots or high cost of servicing them.What we are dealing with here is not just a question of prices or plots or erven in this or that city.It’s not just a problem which is confined to Windhoek.It’s a national issue that affects many people across the length and breadth of Namibia.It is clear that municipalities are busy pushing the urban poor onto the margins of city life and into permanent poverty.But few people care to make this a public issue for discussion.The immediate question is: whose land is urban land and who should benefit from it? Does it belong to these corporations called municipalities or town councils or is it public land? Personally, I draw a distinction between the spatial city – the space you and I live in and the corporate city – the councils.This last notion of a city is very much like government.So just like governments, municipalities are actually bankrupt most of the time.Like the government taxman, they turn to public land, service it and then sell it to make money.But in most cases they fail to draw a distinction between the needs of the consumer and those of the council – wrongly believing they own the land.That raises the question of whether one pays for land or the servicing at those auctions.Of course you are not paying for the servicing of the erf.If you were, then that is just a small portion.What you are paying for is the land – buying back public land from these corporations.One thing we keep hearing is that land has become very scarce in the cities.And they have to look elsewhere for more public land to appropriate and sell.But urban land has not reached such a level of scarcity as to make prices this high.They just create a false sense of scarcity -it’s like hoarding things on the black-market in order to force prices up.Thus, although there is high demand for land in the cities for residential and other purposes; the municipalities are not servicing enough land.It’s like they are asking themselves: do we play by the forces of demand and supply or do we instead hoard it? The lousy excuse given is that it is costly to service plots.This is a circular argument because the high plot prices are explained in terms of cost recovery.Which then begs the question: if they are able to recover the cost, why don’t they go on servicing more erven because the demand is there? And what does it actually mean to service an erf and at what cost? And do they differ from one erf size and location to the other? Why are we raising these questions? This is public land to start with.Secondly, Government has been making a lot of noise about farmland and yet is silent on the issue of urban land – of which it is the custodian.Whether out of ignorance or perhaps just oversight, we don’t know.Or maybe it’s part of the uncritical assumption that every previously disadvantaged Namibian wants to become a farmer or that resettlement means transferring farmland from whites to blacks.Yet urban land can go a long way towards addressing the very land hunger Government says is concerned about.How about those who want to move to cities, start their own small businesses and build their own houses but can’t afford the current unrealistic property prices? The Government has all the power to intervene and arrest the situation before urban land is turned into yet another luxury that only a handful of elites can afford.Recently the Prime Minister, Nahas Angula, warned that most cities are simply making it difficult for the poor to afford land.He is not alone.The National Housing Enterprise also pointed out recently that it has difficulties building enough houses because erven were over-priced.So, how do the proponents of Vision 2030 hope to achieve shelter for all under such a system? The disheartening thing is that urban land is being abused and misused by some.We don’t know how many corrupt municipal officials have bought erven for peanuts, which are stashed away in ‘cupboards’ ready to be sold at the appropriate time.Or land given free to celebrities and high ranking officials – for patronage purposes.The point is that urban land, just like farm or rural land, must be seen within the wider context of the struggle for equitable distribution of resources and ultimately poverty reduction in Namibia.Since Government is the custodian of urban land and presumably concerned about issues of inequality and poverty, it should step in and rein in the municipalities by stamping out corruption and abuse and putting a realistic pricing system in place.Urban property is one tool that can be used to address the plight of our people without having to buy agricultural land for millions or expropriate it.Perhaps the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement should start resettling those who don’t want to go back to their rural roots in towns and cities as well.The intention is not to turn every Namibian into a farmer.Or is it? It’s time Government addresses the issue of urban land very seriously.Last year a number of people hinted at the astronomical prices of plots in a couple of readers’ letters.Sheila Jakobs, for example, took issue with the City of Windhoek on plots pricing.To which the City responded with the usual lousy excuses of either lack of plots or high cost of servicing them.What we are dealing with here is not just a question of prices or plots or erven in this or that city.It’s not just a problem which is confined to Windhoek.It’s a national issue that affects many people across the length and breadth of Namibia.It is clear that municipalities are busy pushing the urban poor onto the margins of city life and into permanent poverty.But few people care to make this a public issue for discussion.The immediate question is: whose land is urban land and who should benefit from it? Does it belong to these corporations called municipalities or town councils or is it public land? Personally, I draw a distinction between the spatial city – the space you and I live in and the corporate city – the councils.This last notion of a city is very much like government.So just like governments, municipalities are actually bankrupt most of the time.Like the government taxman, they turn to public land, service it and then sell it to make money.But in most cases they fail to draw a distinction between the needs of the consumer and those of the council – wrongly believing they own the land.That raises the question of whether one pays for land or the servicing at those auctions.Of course you are not paying for the servicing of the erf.If you were, then that is just a small portion.What you are paying for is the land – buying back public land from these corporations.One thing we keep hearing is that land has become very scarce in the cities.And they have to look elsewhere for more public land to appropriate and sell.But urban land has not reached such a level of scarcity as to make prices this high.They just create a false sense of scarcity -it’s like hoarding things on the black-market in order to force prices up.Thus, although there is high demand for land in the cities for residential and other purposes; the municipalities are not servicing enough land.It’s like they are asking themselves: do we play by the forces of demand and supply or do we instead hoard it? The lousy excuse given is that it is costly to service plots.This is a circular argument because the high plot prices are explained in terms of cost recovery.Which then begs the question: if they are able to recover the cost, why don’t they go on servicing more erven because the demand is there? And what does it actually mean to service an erf and at what cost? And do they differ from one erf size and location to the other? Why are we raising these questions? This is public land to start with.Secondly, Government has been making a lot of noise about farmland and yet is silent on the issue of urban land – of which it is the custodian.Whether out of ignorance or perhaps just oversight, we don’t know.Or maybe it’s part of the uncritical assumption that every previously disadvantaged Namibian wants to become a farmer or that resettlement means transferring farmland from whites to blacks.Yet urban land can go a long way towards addressing the very land hunger Government says is concerned about. How about those who want to move to cities, start their own small businesses and build their own houses but can’t afford the current unrealistic property prices? The Government has all the power to intervene and arrest the situation before urban land is turned into yet another luxury that only a handful of elites can afford.Recently the Prime Minister, Nahas Angula, warned that most cities are simply making it difficult for the poor to afford land.He is not alone.The National Housing Enterprise also pointed out recently that it has difficulties building enough houses because erven were over-priced.So, how do the proponents of Vision 2030 hope to achieve shelter for all under such a system? The disheartening thing is that urban land is being abused and misused by some.We don’t know how many corrupt municipal officials have bought erven for peanuts, which are stashed away in ‘cupboards’ ready to be sold at the appropriate time.Or land given free to celebrities and high ranking officials – for patronage purposes.The point is that urban land, just like farm or rural land, must be seen within the wider context of the struggle for equitable distribution of resources and ultimately poverty reduction in Namibia.Since Government is the custodian of urban land and presumably concerned about issues of inequality and poverty, it should step in and rein in the municipalities by stamping out corruption and abuse and putting a realistic pricing system in place.Urban property is one tool that can be used to address the plight of our people without having to buy agricultural land for millions or expropriate it.Perhaps the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement should start resettling those who don’t want to go back to their rural roots in towns and cities as well.The intention is not to turn every Namibian into a farmer.Or is it? It’s time Government addresses the issue of urban land very seriously.