MLS story

Overview of Managed Land Settlement Story
This is the story of how Pam and her family and friends were involved in building houses and a neighbourhood for themselves.

Story 1: Bulk Preparation


It starts with Pam and some of her friends starting to save for their future housing needs, and then, through the contacts that they made, finding land that a church was willing to donate to them. It also identifies all the processes that they needed to follow to get this land ready for development, including getting planning and environmental approvals.

Story 2: Basic Product


Pam and her friends from the savings schemes now have approval to undertake a Managed Land Settlement pilot project in Bongweni on the church land.

Attention now shifts to planning what the blocks will look like, how tenure will be secured and how to get some basic level of services onto the land.



Story 3: Aided Self Development


Finally Pam, her family and other savings scheme members are now on the church land in Bongweni, in blocks, with basic services and tenure, and with access to opportunities beyond the neighbourhood. Their challenge now is to create a good home and neighbourhood for themselves.



Story 4: Upgrading


Pam and her neighbours have achieved a lot in the 7 to 8 years that they have been on the land in Bongweni without much government support. They have used what money and resources they could get to build themselves some very nice homes, even if these houses were not complete.

The housing process has been turned upside down from one where people used to wait for government subsidies to come first and then use their own money to add to what government provided; to one where they first used their own resources (with a little support where possible) to build and create houses and neighbourhoods they could afford and then used government money to add to what they had already started.

We now turn our attention to how government money and resources can be used to add to what people have started for themselves.



Story 5: Maintenance and Improvement


Pam and her friends have now finally received government housing subsidies which were used to add to what they had already started. This is not the end of the process as incremental settlement never ends. People are always maintaining, modifying and improving their homes to suite their changing circumstances. All of the aided support interventions, started in the aided self development phase, now continue into the future. Lessons continue to be learnt and applied in future phases and projects. The incremental settlement approach is replicated and expanded. Pam’s experience is shared with others in the town, province, country and world.



Following the story
You can follow the story of Pamela and her friends by:


 * clicking the headings in the section above.
 * Clicking the appropriate next story stage on the menu to the right of this page.
 * Reading the whole story on one web page at Pamela's story. (Note that edits made to the story per stage may not be reflected on this page).



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