N2 Gateway

The N2 Gateway Housing Pilot Project is a large housebuilding project under construction in Cape Town, South Africa. It has been labelled by the national government's former Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu as “the biggest housing project ever undertaken by any Government.” Even though it is a joint endeavour by the National Department of Housing, the provincial government of the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town, a private company, Thubelisha, has been outsourced to find contractors, manage,and implement the entire project. Thubelisha estimates that some 25,000 units will be constructed, about 70% of which will be allocated to shack-dwellers, and 30% to backyard dwellers on the municipal housing waiting lists. Delft, 40 km outside of Cape Town, is the main sites of the Project.

The N2 Gateway is a highly controversial project and has been criticised by the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, by the South African Auditor General, by popular organisations such as the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, by Constitutional Court experts such as Pierre De Vos and by affected residents themselves.

Its detractors claim that the N2 Gateway is a beautification project for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. They cite government documents prioritising the development in light of its visibility near to the Cape Town Airport. They also cite the mass evictions that have taken place moving shackdwellers off the N2 corridor into Delft.

To make way for Joe Slovo Phase 1 (a.k.a. N2 Gateway Phase 1), about 1,000 Joe Slovo residents were moved to Temporary Relocation Areas (TRAs) in Delft. After the January 2005 fire, which destroyed 3000 shacks and made 12,000 people homeless, Joe Slovo residents were promised priority in the allocation of N2 Gateway housing. The original plan was for 12,000 rental units to be built during Joe Slovo Phase 1 on the land taken during a massive fire in Joe Slovo in January 2005. Eventually, only 705 houses in that phase were built. It is reported that only one Joe Slovo resident was able to afford the flats whose rents skyrocketed and forced new tenants into a year-long rent boycott. The boycott has been supported by residents of Joe Slovo Informal Settlement, social movements, such as the Anti-Eviction Campaign, and civil society. The Western Cape Housing MEC has recently admitted major structural defects to the Phase 1 flats saying that they may have to be demolished.

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