An assessment of the informal mechanisms of urban land supply: a case study of Cato Crest.

Abstract

One of the most controversial and dramatic features of recent

city development is the phenomenon of access to land through

informal means, which is a reflection of the lack of alternative

delivery systems. Constraints on the supply of land for housing

the urban poor have resulted in a large housing backlog,

reSUlting in overcrowding, the emergence of unplanned housing

such as backyard shacks and free standing informal settlements.

In South Africa, the majority of the popUlation who have been

historically constrained by racist and restrictive land

allocation processes found it difficult to access well located

and affordable serviced land. These constraints have resulted

in poor people obtaining access to land through informal

delivery systems.

This effective exclusion of the urban poor from the formal land

market has resulted in the emergence of the informal systems of

land delivery, such as land invasions etc. Both internationally

and in South Africa, informal settlements and squatting have

represented a way of addressing and challenging market relations

and state regUlation and thus, allow for poorer people to move

into better located areas. The existing informal settlement

within the Cato Manor area (Cato Crest) can be regarded as an

example of this kind of urban process.

The purpose of this dissertation is to assess the performance of

the informal delivery systems in Cato Crest, to establish

whether these systems have reached the urban poor and to look

for ways of dealing with informal land mechanisms in the future.

The findings from the survey indicated that in Cato Crest these

illegal land supply systems have benefitted poor people in terms

of job opportunities, proximity to the city and location.

A number of recommendations can be made in this regard: that

there is a need for a land policy on informal land supply

systems, that which should seek to make strategically located

land available for low income housing in the future. If this is

not accomplished, illegal land occupation will continue unabated

until no land will be available for low income housing.