Students win big in Joburg's new property project

Mashaba on Wednesday announced a R20-billion investment as part of attempts to create affordable housing for the city by releasing city-owned properties to the private sector for development.

"If you look at our proposals when we offer these properties to the private sector, particularly those in the Braamfontin area and others next to universities, we prefer that they give us proposals based on student accommodation."

He says the project is meant to address the backlog for both affordable and student accommodation.

The initiative will consist of 24 different developments in areas such as Yeoville and Turffontein and is expected to create more than 10 000 jobs.

"Well as you are aware the City of Joburg over the last 25 years we allowed the city to decay, taken over by criminal syndicates. So as a city we started buying some of those buildings, some of them we took them back from owners who dis, some of them just left them derelict. We have been accumulating these buildings, in fact we continue on a daily basis to identify the buildings that have been neglected. We either buy them or we expropriate them and then because obviously as a city we don't have the money to build affordable accommodation, it's not our competency so what we do is we take back, we take these properties and then give them out to the private sector to give us proposals."

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He adds: "This is an historic investment. In the 136 years of the City of Johannesburg we've not had a single investment property development in this magnitude ever so it's a historic moment for the city, if not for South Africa."

The project is set begin in the next six months.

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Last year students at Wits University in Braamfontein launched an academic shutdown and staged a march to the mayor's office to hand over a memorandum of demands.

The students were unhappy with the proposed 10% increase in student accommodation in the area.