Joburg will expropriate property, but 'not just for the fun of it'

Mayor Dada Morero said abandoned buildings will be seized to address the 1996-97 housing waiting list

- Lunga Mzangwe

Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero plans to use the Expropriation Act to seize derelict and illegally occupied buildings in the inner city.

The move, Morero said in an interview with the Mail & Guardian, is aimed at accelerating the delivery of long-promised Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) homes to residents who have been on the government housing waiting list since 1996 and 1997.

“We are facing a backlog of around 300 000 people who are waiting for homes,” he said.

“We need to find innovative and efficient ways to address this urgent need for affordable housing for qualifying citizens.”

The Expropriation Act, signed into law last year, allows the minister of public works to seize private property for public purposes or in the public interest, with compensation provided at a “fair and equitable” rate, rather than the market value.

In exceptional cases, land can be expropriated without compensation.

Morero said the city would ensure that abandoned hijacked buildings “will be used for the public good”.

He said the hijacked buildings in the city centre belonged to people who were either overseas or deceased and some belonged to the government.

Morero said just under 50 hijacked buildings belonged to the government while more than 400 belong to private owners.

“Just under 100, we can’t find the owners; they have abandoned the buildings. [On] those we will do sale of execution and possible expropriation. Sometimes we find that the owner has died and their children are not interested; these are the buildings that go through our sales and execution queue.

“We have buildings in the city that owe us over R15 million. The owners are overseas and they have abandoned them; they don’t care. You would know that some of the people who owned some of the properties in the inner city are from England, Germany and we also found a few from Australia.