Housing crisis hits South Africas regions

SOUTH Africas regional provinces, Bloemfontein Free State and the Botshabelo Township, south west of the capital are experiencing a crippling housing crisis with demand far outstripping supply.Local residential letting specialist, Global Platinums Mike Spencer says despite the building of a number of new blocks of flats in the city recently, it is still struggling to keep up with demand. We are usually able to offer a range of residential properties out of the more than 1 500 homes that we manage but at this time we have virtually nothing available. While from time to time we are able to offer a few student type units normal family accommodation is virtually unobtainable, he added.Spencer said there had been a number of developments going up recently, but the 200 odd units were already absorbed by the market.     While the further development of another 100 units is expected for the rest of the year, it is highly unlikely to make a difference to the available supply. There is a small supply of upmarket smallholdings available in the region of R13 000 per month.Spencer says one of the reasons for the lack of supply in residential properties is the influx of students to the Free State University and other tertiary institutions. However, the demand is across the board and not limited to student accommodation.   Managing Director of Urban Dynamics in the Free State, Leon Ehlers, concurs. He says many of the youth are relocating from neighbouring townships to the city centre.Botshabelo, which Ehlers says consists of mainly formal housing, is also in dire need of housing, but this also pertains to the poorest of the poor.What is frustrating, Ehlers says, is that estate agents are struggling to convert office blocks into housing units. He says developers are finding it impossible to develop due to exorbitant water and electricity rates payable to the municipality. He says while the municipality should be taking the lead, poor administration and the lengthy processing of applications for developments is hampering the process.The municipality was not immediately available for comment.Spencer says the lack of potential sites for bulk housing is also partly to blame for the housing shortage. He adds that the cost of converting existing sites into flats and townhouses is simply uneconomical.   Local authorities had imposed far less than favourable conditions on building bulk housing on smallholdings and close to town sites that were reducing the number of units that could be developed on one site.He added that previously, it would have been possible to develop a 30 unit block of flats on a 3,000 square metre site, but new ones were being limited to between 20 and 30 units per 10,000 square metre. This means that developers can now only build about 25 per cent of the number of units on the same sized erven compared to what they previously could have. Spencer said the cost and time taken to rezone and township smallholdings were also prohibitive. 
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