While the City of Cape Town has concluded its first leg of a public participation process for Cissie Gool House (CGH), also known as Woodstock Hospital, occupants are still seeking meaningful engagement with the City.

Mayco Member for Human Settlements, Carl Pophaim announced on Friday that they have concluded the first leg of the public participation period for intended mixed income and affordable housing development at the Woodstock Hospital site.

Pophaim said that this phase of engagement involved statutory-required written inputs, which are being collated at the moment.

“As the Mayoral Committee Member, I will be driving a further public engagement campaign with the relevant stakeholders including the Woodstock Hospital occupants as well as the broader community groupings from later in February.

“We’ve been clear about our intention to garner meaningful, feasible and constructive input on the proposed vision for this site, which includes the development of affordable housing opportunities for qualifying residents,” Pophaim said.

The statutory written phase of the public participation period has been conducted over four months in total, which Pophaim said is a “considerable period for input which exceeds the statutory required 30 days”.

He added that all feasible options will be assessed in terms of the applicable legislation and council policy.

“I am excited by the prospect of further robust engagement around the City’s affordable housing agenda. Through our flagship priority land release programme, the City has in the last two years released land parcels offering over 4,000 residential opportunities now available for affordable development and we have a portfolio of approximately 5,000 constructed and completed Social Housing units in well-located areas across the metro.

“With some 12 000 opportunities for affordable rental housing opportunities in the pipeline in urban centres across Cape Town, we firmly believe that our plans for this site as a mixed income and affordable housing development will be a game-changer, bringing much-needed affordable housing and an economic boost to this area.”

Pophaim said the total extent of the property, valued at approximately R87 million, including a potential residential development yield of approximately 500 units, will include open market and social housing.

One of the CGH occupiers, and a leader for the Reclaim the City (RTC) Woodstock chapter, Karen Hendricks spoke outside the Civic Centre on Friday on the day the first leg of the participation process closed, reiterating her call for meaningful engagement.

“Why was there a public participation process in the first place without the City coming to meaningfully engage with us? In 2019 a co-design process started with the City of Cape Town. The City of Cape Town believed that Cissie Gool House could be developed with the existing occupiers.

“The City of Cape Town is not saying the same thing today, but we are saying that we want meaningful engagement and we also want inclusive development that is not going to displace any of us.

“This is what these people don’t want to hear, that CGH has been the only housing alternative for almost a 1,000 people in this City.”

Hendricks claimed the City placed developers above the priority of residents and the communities who exist in Woodstock and Salt River when it comes to land.

“Most of us who live in Cissie Gool House are people who were born, raised and grew up in Woodstock. It is not impossible that we turn that space into a home because the community that we built in Woodstock for decades still exists in Cissie Gool House today.

“Cissie Gool House offers the only housing alternative to people who would otherwise be pushed to the margins of the City.”

According to Reclaim the City, they’ve had more than 700 individual submissions, and an RTC submission that was endorsed by all CGH occupiers”.

They have also had a submission from organisation Ndifuna Ukwazi and a CGH submission written by SERI, the public interest law centre.

Pophaim said that the engagements with the existing occupants of the Woodstock Hospital site will also continue and “the point of departure remains that all policies will be upheld and successful participation in the social housing agenda is dependent on the socio-economic profile of the households”.

“The City is engaging the households on the options available to them to determine the appropriate response for each household in terms of Council policy and legislation,” Pophaim said.

theolin.tembo@inl.co.za