The High-Level Panel on the Assessment of Key Legislation and Acceleration of Fundamental Change held a round-table discussion in Parliament, focusing on people’s unequal access to urban land.

Ndifuna Ukwazi’s Hopolang Sebelalo says most black and coloured poor and working class people still live in crowded, poorly serviced areas on the margins of the Mother City and these apartheid spatial patterns are being reinforced by new developments located in far-flung areas.

“Well located state land that could be used for affordable housing either lies vacant, is under-utilised or is sold off. Just to note that not a single affordable housing unit has been built in the inner city since 1994.”

The Human Sciences Research Council’s Professor Ivan Turok has told the panel that government policies are entrenching unequal access to land across the country, instead of easing the problem.

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