By Nangamso Mabindla
13 October 2005

WITH its first show house complete, Buffalo City Municipality launched the Potsdam Unit P low cost housing project.

The project, which was started in April, aims to house the city's underprivileged communities, as well as ease its 75 000 housing backlog. It is part of the Mdantsane Urban Renewal programme, a presidential programme to change the face of the impoverished township.

The main beneficiaries of this project are those living in Mdantsane sharing houses, in all 14 of its wards, and people living in the Ikwezi Block 2 informal settlement in Potsdam, outside Mdantsane.

Opening the show house on Thursday, 13 October, Buffalo City's portfolio head for development planning and housing, Sithembiso Tyilo, said the houses would restore lost dignity to people in Mdantsane who shared houses.

Building new homes in Potsdam

"We are going to start by building 500 units. We plan to complete this phase in March, but our target is to build about 2 500 houses for beneficiaries here."

Talking about the housing backlog, Tyilo said the municipality had a housing development strategy to decrease the backlog. "Our strategy is divided into sets of five-year plans to catch up on our backlog.

"We will, for example, decide how many units we need to build per five years so that we improve on the delivery of houses," Tyilo added.

Nonkosi Tunzi, a beneficiary from Mdantsane, said she was happy the city had turned its attention to the people in the township. "I have been living in a shared house in Mdantsane for the past three years, but now I will have a house to call my own.

"I only hope that Buffalo City will now try to get to all those people who do not have proper housing," she said.

The project will also create jobs for some of the beneficiaries.

"Some of these beneficiaries will help build their own houses and this will help them take better care of the house they built," Tyilo said.

These people were given building training at the Border Training Centre in East London.