Mayor Tau tackles Alex land issue at Bua Le Sechaba

15 June 2016

 

Johannesburg Executive Mayor Cllr Parks Tau on Tuesday night announced that the City and the Alexandra property owners were edging closer to resolving the protracted land impasse, which would result in more land being acquired to further develop the township.

 

Mayor Tau met the property owners at the San Kopano Community Centre in Alexandra during his tour of the township under the Bua le Sechaba campaign, a high-level City initiative that provides a platform for residents to open up about service delivery issues and the City to give feedback on some of the projects it is undertaking to improve their quality of life.

In 2005, large-scale government development initiatives under the Alexandra Renewal Project were put on hold after a group of property owners obtained a court interdict stopping any infrastructure development from taking place in the old section of the township.

Several meetings were held between the property owners and the government – including the City – in a bid to find a solution and a breakthrough was reached in October 2015 when the parties signed a “declaration of intent” aimed at paving the way to the resumption of infrastructure development projects. But there has not been any major shift since.

After his meeting with the property owners on Tuesday night, Mayor Tau addressed more than 200 residents who had come to voice their dissatisfaction with power outages, the housing backlog, unemployment and “the slow pace of service delivery”.

Some of the residents complained about delays in obtaining title deeds.

The Mayor told the residents that the development of Alexandra had been held back by the land issue. He said, however, that after his meeting with the property owners earlier, he was hopeful the impasse on land acquisition would be resolved soon.

“We are here tonight to give you feedback on the development of Alex. We have had an ongoing engagement about the development of Alex. But until we resolve the land issue we cannot unlock the development,” he said.

“We have spent the past few years talking to those who own land. We are almost in agreement and after today’s meeting I have hope,” he said.

“The problem is that in the past we have tried to resolve the development of Alexandra piecemeal. This has not worked. We have to develop Alex in stages.”