Millions spent, five years wasted, and Dunoon families still stuck in shacks
Peter Luhanga
- Plan launched with fanfare in 2020 to build 1,400 homes.
- R26-million spent on services but not one brick laid.
- National government pulled the plug on funding after Covid.
- Councillor fumes: “Slashing the project to 500 houses just doesn’t make sense.”
Dunoon families are still crammed into shacks while a housing project promised five years ago gathers dust.
The Killarney Gardens scheme, meant to build 1,400 homes, hasn’t delivered a single brick.
Launched with fanfare in 2020 by former Minister of Human Settlements Lindiwe Sisulu, the plan was supposed to ease overcrowding in the township.
In January 2024, the then provincial spokesperson for the Western Cape Department of Infrastructure, Jandre Bakker, said fencing had been completed in December 2020, the site had been cleared between November 2021 and March 2022, and bulk services such as sewerage lines and stormwater drains were laid in February 2023.
This had cost R26-million, said Bakker.
When asked for an update this month, Western Cape Department of Infrastructure spokesperson Melchior Botes said the project was derailed in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. Botes said the National Department of Human Settlements had revised the emergency housing grant, centralising access and preventing the province from securing funds to build the three- and four-storey buildings originally intended.
She said because no funding was available for the top structures, the province never went to market to appoint a contractor. “As no contractor was appointed, there is no financial impact linked to this delay.”
She said following changes to the funding structure, the department considered several alternatives, the most recent being a conversion to single and duplex units under the Breaking New Ground subsidy. That option, however, was rejected. It would have meant reducing the development to just 488 units, only a third of what had been planned.
With demand for housing in Dunoon continuing to rise, she said the department believed all land and development rights must be used to their fullest capacity.
The infrastructure, already designed to serve 1,400 households, would otherwise sit underutilised. “It is simply not feasible to downscale the project.”
She said the department has since turned to the City of Cape Town, asking for help to push the project forward on the basis of its original scale. Officials are now working with the municipality to identify a viable funding route that could finally see the scheme delivered as first promised.
“As an accredited municipal entity, the City is able to tap into funding streams which the department does not typically have direct access to. We are also engaging the National Department of Human Settlement to secure funding to proceed with the project. It is expected that a resolution on the matter will be reached soonest and a public announcement will then be made,” she said
Proportional Representation (PR) councillor and acting ward councillor for Dunoon, Thando Dedezane, said reducing the project to less than 500 units was not a feasible option.
Dedezane said the whole point was to ease overcrowding, and Covid was used to speed up the plan. Now families who were promised homes were being left in the cold, with no money on the table to finish the job.
“Already we’ve got trouble,” Dedezane said. “In Doornbach [also known as Site 5], people say the whole project was for them. In Siyahlala and Thembeni, residents were also earmarked. Cutting it back to 500 homes will only make the fight worse. Dunoon’s overcrowding hasn’t eased, it’s got worse. There are more elderly people, more child-headed households. Slashing the project from 1,500 to 500 houses just doesn’t make sense,” he said.