Heritage Cases

The Department of Human Settlements intends to build houses for Military Veterans in the Msunduzi Municipality. Originally, seven plots were noted, but this has now been reduced to four plots. The policy for housing is as follows (RK and Associates 2018:1-4): • “… Iand which is level has had site sizes reduced to 300m² which accommodates a 50m² house and provides ± 250m² of usable level garden area (ie very little of the site is taken up by banks). • As the land gets steeper more and more of the site is taken up by banks generated by the 72m² flat platform that needs to be built to accommodate each 50m² house. To compensate those veterans whose land has a steeper slope site sizes have been increased in size to as much as 750m². • The average site size on medium slopes is 350m². • Many of the veterans have physical impairments: o These impairments have been caused by the veterans’ active duty during the struggle and they cannot negotiate stairs or steep slopes either within the house or between the road serving the house and the front door. • Many of the veterans are elderly: o The same constraints highlighted above apply to the many veterans who are elderly. • Other Veterans: o Those veterans who do not suffer from either of the abovementioned issues will suffer from the alignments within the next decade of their life so cognizance of this impending frailty should be taken into account. • Importance of level sites: o This factor together with the two abovementioned issues has the implication of ensuring that Veteran Villages are located on as level a site as possible. Steep sites will result in steps between the road and house and large banks being generated on each site which the veterans are unable to maintain • Creation of level easy walks from the road to each house: • Dependence on Public Transport: • Existing General Plans • Many of the sites, have existing planning permission and general plans already approved. Where it appears that such sites do not trigger an environmental impact assessment and can be logically and functionally included in the new subdivisional layouts this has been achieved. This has an advantage that these sites are capable of immediate commencement of construction of houses.”