Madam Speaker, last week the Minister of Housing hon Lindiwe Sisulu made a presentation to the portfolio committee regarding the progress, or lack thereof, of the N2 Gateway development. During her presentation Minister Sisulu said that, "Five parcels of land earmarked for the project was retracted by the city".
Minister Sisulu must stop trying to blame the N2 Gateway project failures on others and take responsibility. If she wants to criticise the city she must do so on the basis of the facts. The facts are as follows: The city withdrew no offers of land; city officials conducted extensive research into identifying suitable land, which was presented to the N2 Gateway Steering Committee for consideration.
The land in Epping is on the Nigeria Way road reserve, which has a number of buried bulk services. It was considered only for temporary housing after the Langa fire in January 2005. The required rezoning environmental process was initiated and was shelved when approximately 1 800 written objections were received and negotiations between the then Executive Director for Development and Infrastructure and the Epping Chamber of Industries failed to reach consensus.
The land in Gugulethu is privately owned and a price was negotiated for the land. However, use of the land for the N2 Gateway project was rejected outright by the local community. Driftsands is owned by the province and is a declared biodiversity reserve, except for a relatively small portion which is being developed to consolidate two informal settlements on the land. This process is being driven by the province with support from the city.
A piece of land, 40 ha in extent, in Ottery was considered. However, the land requires major earthworks and drainage work to render it suitable for any form of development. In consultation with the provincial housing department regarding funds available for remediation works, it was agreed that the unit cost would be far too high to consider this piece of land further. [Time expired.]