People live in squalor as City of Joburg’s development plans gather dust

Zandspruit residents live in overcrowded shacks. The City of Joburg’s housing promises have not materialised. Photos: Silver Sibiya.

Residents of Zandspruit, an informal settlement in northern Johannesburg, live in dire conditions. Promises by the City of Johannesburg to develop the area have not materialised.

GroundUp visited Zandspruit last week and saw makeshift electrical cables hanging dangerously and cracked sewage pipes. Many roads are unpaved and muddy. Others are flooded with sewage.

Many people live in overcrowded shacks, surrounded by raw sewage. According to the residents, toilets are not emptied regularly by the municipality and are overflowing.

Last month, more than 100 people, including elderly residents, marched to Honeydew Police Station and handed a memorandum with their concerns to a representative of the Premier’s office.

In 2008, the City of Johannesburg outlined plans to develop Zandspruit in an Urban Development Framework, but this was never fully implemented. A new framework was developed by the City last year, but was only approved by the city council earlier this year.

In 2019, to help reduce overcrowding, the municipality developed 701 serviced stands — plots of land with basic infrastructure such as water, electricity and sanitation. These were to be handed over to qualifying Zandspruit families to build their own homes.

But the project appears to have stalled, and the stands remain vacant. Residents say there is confusion about who the stands will be allocated to and when.

Pensioner Miriam Mokoni, 69, says she’s been on the housing waiting list for decades.

“My husband died without ever getting a house. I had to reapply. I’m still living in a shack,” she said.

“I arrived here as a young woman,” says Thobile Dubazana, now 50. “We’ve had many peaceful protests, sent petitions, memorandums — but nothing has changed.”

She said most people in Zandspruit are unemployed or pensioners and cannot afford to buy serviced stands.

“This is why we’re calling for houses to be built,” she said. “We also want transparency — we don’t even know who is set to benefit from the serviced stands.”

MMC for Human Settlements Mlungisi Mabaso told SABC’s Cutting Edge in May that the stands are for people who earn R3,500 or more per month and can afford to build their own houses. He said beneficiaries will be drawn from Zandspruit.

Other plots will be made available for households earning less than R3,500 a month.

The City of Johannesburg did not respond to our questions despite repeated follow-ups.

A manhole overflowing with raw sewage.

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