From the Inside: Few things are more complicated than an acrimonious political divorce

Breaking up is hard to do, sang Neil Sedaka in his 1960s hit song, composed in the format of the time, complete with nonsensical background lyrics.

Comma, comma, down dooby doo down down
Comma, comma, down dooby doo down down
Breaking up is hard to do…

This incomprehensible combination of vowels and consonants may aptly describe a teenage bust-up. But it falls short in more complex circumstances.

Few things are more complicated than an acrimonious political divorce.

One moment someone is running as a candidate for a leadership position in a party; the next, they are publicly denigrating the very people whose support they sought, and vilifying the platform they faithfully promised to promote.

Small wonder that voters get cynical about politicians.

By the time the dust settles, most observers have already drawn a conclusion consistent with their pre-existing narrative. In the DA’s case, it is the tired trope that we are “racist”.

The recent bust-up in the DA’s caucus in the City of Cape Town is a case in point.Many observers have concluded that it was (at least in part) the result of opposition, by some DA councillors, to the development of affordable inner-city housing.

I was just as distressed as anyone when I heard that the council had postponed the decision to sell 13 erven, collectively known as the Salt River market site, to the social housing company Communicare, for a development which will comprise 33% social (rental) accommodation for families earning below R15,000 a month.

If we can pull it off, this project will indeed be a game-changer in the city.

So I asked a lot of questions and did a lot of digging to establish exactly what happened at the council meeting of 25 October and why the agreement to dispose of the property was postponed.

I have concluded that this was not the result of anyone in the DA caucus trying to stop the development, nor to prevent affordable housing in the inner city.Every one of us wants the project (and many more) to go ahead.

There were three main reasons the DA caucus decided to postpone, by about six weeks, the approval of the sale.

The first was the crucial question as to why the proposed development will not include more social housing, especially as Communicare will buy the site at a mere 10% of its market value, a benefit intended to reduce the cost of the housing for the end user. Given this huge discount, the councillors wanted to know: Was a 33% component of social housing sufficient, especially when measured against the remaining profitable market residential and retail opportunities in the development?

Second, there is an important question relating to the land valuation.Contrary to some statements this question had not been resolved beforehand, because the documents before the council contained two valuations for the 1.4ha site. The first, dated 2014, was for R18-million.The other, done this year, was R114-million, because it factored in the intended bulk of the proposed development. The councillors needed a rational basis to determine whether the land should be sold to Communicare for R1.8-million or R11.4-million — a substantial difference.

This is not an optional calculation.The law requires the council to meet benchmarks of rationality and fair value.So the councillors resolved to wait another six weeks to get the required information before taking a decision.

The third reason related to Communicare itself. During the very week of the council meeting there were media reports that eight staff members were being investigated for alleged corruption, raising a host of questions about the company’s management of its social housing portfolio.Due diligence necessitated further investigation.

The necessity of resolving these questions has been underscored by the fact that three other inner-city housing developments have already been stopped by the courts, including the landmark Foreshore freeway project, after procedural and other problems were identified.

Once there is a court challenge on any aspect of a development, it usually takes about five years to resolve.That five-year delay is then added on to the routine three-year cycle required to complete the preparatory planning processes (assuming all goes according to schedule). This is the reason so many of our priority projects take at least eight years of preparatory work and problem resolution before we put the first spade in the ground.

When it comes to property development in our complex legal environment I have learnt that speed kills.We need to move as slowly as necessary in order to proceed as fast as possible.

And the councillors, in this instance, decided that waiting another six weeks for answers to their questions was preferable to creating conditions for an almost certain court challenge.

That seemed a sensible trade-off under the circumstances. Especially as a long delay occasioned by a five-year court challenge would almost inevitably result in yet another land invasion which would rule out any prospect of the site being used for orderly development in the interests of law-abiding and qualifying beneficiaries.

A land invasion is inevitably governed by the law of the jungle, where might is right. It is hardly surprising that so many settlements initiated by land invasions become “law-free” zones, with rival “big-men” engaged in constant internecine contestation over power to exercise control and extract “rents” from their right-less followers.

We are currently trying to deal with two land invasions on prime inner-city sites: the Helen Bowden Nurses’ Home near the Waterfront and the old Woodstock Hospital.

These prime spaces, which are intended for affordable housing to accommodate needy and qualifying beneficiaries, were occupied on the back of false promises made by “social justice activists” pursuing their own agenda. They told people (irrespective of their status on the waiting list or the qualifying criteria for state housing support) that if they occupied these buildings they would be in pole position for state accommodation in the central city

Now that these hapless individuals are beginning to realise they are being used as pawns in a wider agenda, the situation is rapidly deteriorating and becoming ungovernable.Before long, such “communities” become magnets for criminals, drug dealers and other social pathologies.

And of course the actual delivery of affordable housing to qualifying beneficiaries is delayed indefinitely.

Contrary to what many believe, the development of affordable housing in the city, and especially on well-located land, is not merely, or even primarily, a question of political will.We have that in abundance.

It is a question of navigating the minefield of legal compliance in order not to end up in court — which destroys any hope of “rapid” (or affordable) delivery. And, also, to prevent land invasions during this interminable process.

Any major property development — especially those that require government and market cross-subsidisation to make the resultant product affordable to people of modest incomes — must traverse a legislative minefield to obtain the required “basket of rights” before building can start.

There are about nine different project streams (each with its own tributaries), involving countless delivery chains, requiring hundreds of decisions made by scores of officials, crossing three spheres of government, each with its own legal obligations, in order to comply with the requirements of a “clean audit”.

Depending on the permutations of each project, it includes:

• A physical planning process;


• A zoning process;


• An environmental process;


• A heritage process;


• A traffic and parking process;


• A finance-marshalling process (if government subsidies are required);


• A political approval process;


• A land disposal process; and


• A whole range of procurement processes at every step of the way.