Housing in Southern Africa June 2016

News

Ceiling retrofit project

T he ambitious ceiling retrofit project aims to ensure that ceilings in old state-subsidised housing projects have been insulated and weatherproofed. The majority of state-subsidised housing units were constructed without insulated ceilings andweath- erproofing during 1994 and 2005. This was because the then subsidy, which was provided by the government, did not make provision for the installa- tion of ceilings. After 2005, the standard for sub- sidised housing was improved and the housing subsidy was increased to provide ceilings, weatherproofing and partitioned bedrooms. The City of Cape Town Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Benedicta van Minnen says, “We are expecting to complete 4 500 ceilings by August. This will be to the benefit of our more vulnerable residents, especially during the cold

More than 3 600 government fully subsidised housing units have been retrofitted with ceilings by the City of Cape Town.

and wet winter months as this has health implications.” The R133 million large-scale ceil- ing retrofitting initiative includes 8 001 units in total. The city has already completed units in Eureka, Kalkfontein, Broadlands (Strand) and Lwandle, with units in Vrygrond and

Wesbank still to be completed. The second phase of the project has been earmarked to start in the second half of the year. It has been estimated that in Cape Town alone, there are approximately 40 000 state-subsidised homes that do not have ceilings. ■