Housing Policy, Mine Closure, and Sustainable Housing in an Upgraded Informal Settlement: Experiences from Welkom in Matjhabeng Local Municipality, South Africa

Abstract

From a housing policy perspective, the South African government adopted several programs, including informal settlement upgrading, as a mechanism to provide not only adequate and sustainable housing but also sustainable human settlements. The empirical research evidence from an upgraded informal settlement in a mining town called Welkom shows both strengths and weaknesses associated with informal settlement upgrading as a mechanism for the provision of sustainable housing in the context of mine closure. Notwithstanding strides made in the provision of low-income public housing through, amongst others, informal settlement upgrading, there is a twofold criticism levelled against housing policy in South Africa. First, the policy fails to recognize the contextual differences between mining and non-mining communities or towns. Second, the policy fails to anticipate mine closure and its possible impact on homeownership, affordability, and the sustainability of low-income housing delivered, particularly through informal settlement upgrading projects. Against this brief background, this chapter intends to show (through the lived experiences of project beneficiaries in Thabong, Welkom) how mine closure could, to a certain extent, disrupt and undermine housing policy and its notion of ‘homeownership’ and ‘sustainable housing’. This chapter uses empirical data that was gathered longitudinally through four household surveys (1998, 2008, 2014, and 2021) in a former black township area (Thabong) near a mining town called Welkom in the Matjhabeng local municipality.