Building houses without schools, clinics, police stations, recreational activities and an adequate transport system is “unacceptable”.
Launching the Integrated Urban Development Framework in Boksburg on Friday 25 October , Human Settlements Deputy Minister Zou Kota-Fredericks said the government also can no longer afford to build houses that are not closer to places of work.
The Integrated Urban Development Framework is an on-going consultative process aimed at getting members of the public and experts in the human settlements field to give input on how inclusive urban settlements should be designed.
“Present and future inhabitants of sustainable human settlements, located both in urban and rural areas, must live in a safe and a secure environment.
“Sustainable human settlements are supportive of the communities, thus contributing towards greater social cohesion, social crime prevention, moral regeneration, support for national heritage, recognition and support of indigenous knowledge systems, and the on-going extension of land rights,” she said.
Kota-Fredericks also said that the new framework was a policy process that was aimed at changing the apartheid regime legacy of urban divide, which now sees many South Africans living in places that are far from places of work, and having to bear the cost of spending most of their income on transport.
She said the new framework will also tackle the call by the National Development Plan (NDP) — government’s vision that states that ‘the main challenge in planning for urban areas is to enable job creation linked to sustainable livelihoods and to establish well-performing human settlements. This should be at the heart of what municipalities do and how they function’.
The deputy minister said: “Indeed, planning and project implementation takes place at a municipal level. We will use our grants, like the Urban Settlements Development Grant to make sure that there is an integrated project approach towards national socio-economic development.
“As a department, we are committed to play this co-ordinating role to make sure that this vision is achieved as envisaged in the National Development Plan,” she said. – SAnews.gov.za