2 - Bulk

Module 2 explores what needs to happen before you can even start to move onto any piece of land. It looks at how to organise yourself as a community and how to identify land and get the necessary approvals to develop this piece of land.

The following steps are involved in the Bulk preparation phase.

1. Initiation and management
2. Bulk organising
3. Bulk land
4. Bulk planning and environment
5. Bulk services
6. Bulk access
7. Bulk allocation
8. Bulk financing

Decision questions: After working through this section you should be able to answer the following questions:

• What land is available for you and can you develop
• Who will take the lead and be the developer of the project
• Who will be allocated to the land in your project
• Where will the money come from to start the project?

Exercises

Exercise 1

Read the Bulk preparation stage of Pamela's story.

Exercise 2

Read the following short examples / case studies – which of them would you say follows the Incremental settlement process and why

• 1. Simpiwe put his name on the municipalities housing waiting list in 1994. Last year the municipality developed an RDP housing project as an extension to his township and he was allocated one of these houses.

• 2. Lindi lives in an informal settlement on the edge of town. A few months ago the municipality put in a communal toilet facility on the edge of her settlement. The ward councillor said that they were going to move some of the people to another piece of land, but most the people in the community did not want this. Lindi and some of her friends have started to save money for future housing and elected a committee to negotiate with the municipality to upgrade the houses.

• 3. Temba, as part of a group of homeless from his rural village who needed work in the nearby city , found a piece of land hidden in bushes next to the main road. They did not know who owned it, but it was not being maintained, so one or two men built a few small shacks. When no one complained after a few days, Temba and about 30 other households also started to build shacks.

• 4. John bought a plot with a nice sea view in a new gated community with his savings. He got a bond from the bank and appointed a building contractor to build him a 4 bedroom house. He has sold his old house and will be moving into the new house next month.

• 5. Sipho has been renting a room in the backyard of a person who owns a 4 roomed house in the township for the last 10 years. He is happy with this arrangement as any savings he makes from his work in town he sends back to his family in the rural area to build a nice brick house.

• 6. Janet is paying rent to live an apartment in the local housing association. The apartment is only two bedrooms so 3 of her 5 children are having to sleep in the lounge. She has put her name on the municipal waiting list but does not know when she will ever get a house.

• 7. Jacob and other members of his church group who needed housing negotiated with a local farmer to sell them a piece of his farm for them to build some houses. The group established a communal property association (CPA) and got money from government to buy the land from the farmer. The constitution of the CPA explains that each member can live on a portion of the property owned by the CPA. The group managed to get donations from the church to install a borehole for water and each household has built their own pit latrine.

• 8. About 3 years ago Noxolo heard about a project a few kilometres out of town where the municipality was letting households, on a first come first serve basis, move onto plots that the municipality had marked out on the ground. There were also communal ablution blocks available. At the start Noxolo had to pay a small rent to the municipality, but then after she had been on the land for a year, the municipality gave her the title deeds to the plot. She now has to pay rates for the plot but as her income is low she gets a discount. The municipality have started to upgrade a few of the houses each but Noxolo’s house is only on the list to be upgraded in 5 years time.

See the suggested responses section to compare your response to those suggested.

Exercise 3: land options

Assume that you are a community of 100 households living in shacks on a flood plain next to a river.

You have the option to move to the following 4 pieces of land, which would you choose and why? make your decision based on the advantages and disadvantages of each option.

• Option A

A very small piece of land right next to where you are living now that can only accommodate 10 of the 100 households on reasonably sized plots. The municipality will chose the 10 people who will get an RDP house with full services and tile deeds. There are no plans for the other 90 people,

• Option B

A piece of land that can accommodate 100 households on very small plots that is about 1 KM away from where you are living now. You will have to wait 2 years before the RDP houses are build and you can move onto the land.

• Option C

A piece of land that can accommodate 100 households fairly comfortably. The land is 5 km away. There will be 4 communal toilets and standpipes The municipality will let you stay on the land now only if you promise that no new and more people move onto the land.

• Option D

A very big piece of land that is 30 KM’s on the other side of town away from where most people in your community work. The land can accommodate up to 800 plots with each household getting a large plot with pit latrines and water per plot

See the suggested responses section to compare your response to those suggested.

Exercise 4: allocation

Read the section on allocation from Pamela’s story found here. Why do you think Pamela and her friends allocated people to the church land the way they did? What other ways could they have organised the allocation?

See suggested responses section to compare your answer to those suggested.

Assignments

Assignment 1: Find possible land

Go to your municipalities town planning department and find out from them what land the municipality has that you could consider asking for and/or ask them what other land you could consider developing. If you are already on the land, find out if you can stay where you are. For each potential piece of land find out what the opportunities are and the obstacles are for developing this piece of land. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each piece of land. For those pieces of land that look promising find out what the steps will be to get this land.

When looking at advantages and disadvantages consider the following questions:

• Can it accommodate all of you?
• Is it close to where people work?
• How long do you think it will take to get all the approvals necessary to develop it?
• How likely is it that neighbours or environmentalists or other people will object to you developing the land?
• Who owns the land and how easy will it be to negotiate for it?
• how expensive will it be to get the land and develop it? If its private land and close to shops for example the existing owner may ask an expensive price for it. If it is hilly it may be more expensive to put in roads and pipes?.

Assignment 2: developer

As part of your committee, speak to as many people as possible and find out from them how they would develop the project for you. Examples of people to speak to include:

• Someone from the municipality
• Someone from another community that has already done something similar to what you want to do
• A private developer who will develop the houses for you for a profit
• Someone from a non government organisation

Note the various options you have for who can be the developer and consider the advantage and disadvantages of each option to help you identify who would be appropriate.

When looking at advantages and disadvantages take into account the following points:

• How much will it cost?
• How much control or influence will you have as a community ?
• How long will it take?
• Do they have the skills and experience to make you confident they will develop the project?

Come back to this exercise whenever you feel you have new information and review your decisions. Note that the developer or person who takes the lead does not have to be the same person at each stage of the process. For example,. the municipality may be best placed to develop the land and services, but you may want to get an NGO to help you develop the houses.

Assignment 3: funding

Go to the municipality, provincial government and others and find out as much as you can about how you can pay for the MLS project. Many people will not understand the incremental settlement approach so you will have to continually explain it to the people you meet.

Assignment 4: Getting your ducks in a row

While you are negotiating for land, you can use the following checklist to check if you have addressed all the things you need to before you can move to the next phase of planning to and moving onto the land.

• Have you identified a possible piece of land?
• Is the land shown as land for housing development on long term plans (like the Spatial Development Framework)?
• Is the project in the Integrated Development Plan (IDP)
• Is their bulk water?
• Is their bulk sewerage?
• Is their bulk electricity?
• Is their good public road access to the land?
• Is there a budget for the project?
• Is their funding?

If the answer is no to any of these questions, find out from the municipality how it can be corrected, and find out how long it will take to correct it. Who within the municipality will be dealing with this so you can follow it up.

Assignment 5: allocation

Call a general meeting of the community you are working with and discuss how you will do allocation.

• What allocation process will be followed?
• What criteria will be used to decide who gets which piece of land?

Next module

Click here to go to the next module, module 3 - Basic.