CONTINUING to build housing along apartheid settlement lines will cost the public purse about R20-billion over the next 10 years, the financial and fiscal commission (FFC) told Parliament yesterday.
"We can save 1.4% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 10 years if we use land in the six metropolitan cities efficiently," Mkhululi Ncube of the FFC told Parliament's human settlements committee yesterday.
The GDP is currently $285.3- billion (R2.261-trillion).
Ncube said compact cities were able to make large energy savings that the current "sprawling" metros - still expanding along apartheid lines - were not.
There would also be 22% less carbon emissions resulting from more efficient public transport and less travelling, he added. Government must provide a financial incentive to cities willing to do "in-fill development" - building low-income blocks of flats in land close to the city centre, he said.
While land in city centres was more expensive than land on the "peripheries", government should fund "good land to locate people closer to where they live and work and try to overcome apartheid spatial inequalities", said the FFC's Tania Ajam.
Since 1994, city bosses have built very few low-income blocks of flats in formerly white areas close to the city centres, preferring instead to expand far-flung townships with tiny RDP houses.
The City of Cape Town announced in March that it would use a large piece of land on the city's foreshore to expand the International Convention Centre with a new shopping area, offices, parking bays and hospital.
But with next month's COP17 global government negotiations aimed at agreeing on a limit for carbon emissions, Ncube said high emissions associated with "sprawling" cities were a threat which could not be ignored.
"The cost is real. Climate change induces increases in water and electricity infrastructure expenditures. Municipalities will forgo the provision of essential services as they stretch their budgets to cover the impact of climate change."
FFC chairman Bongani Khumalo said it was up to Parliament to ask the Human Settlements department to follow its recommendations.
The FFC does not have the power to compel the department to do what it suggests. He implied that the Human Settlements department had not listened to the FFC's advice.
After tabling their recommendations in Parliament, the FFC always invited director-generals to a meeting. Khumalo said some departments responded and some did not.
Long-term costs in sprawling cities
CONTINUING to build housing along apartheid settlement lines will cost the public purse about R20-billion over the next 10 years, the financial and fiscal commission (FFC) told Parliament yesterday.
"We can save 1.4% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 10 years if we use land in the six metropolitan cities efficiently," Mkhululi Ncube of the FFC told Parliament's human settlements committee yesterday.
The GDP is currently $285.3- billion (R2.261-trillion).
Ncube said compact cities were able to make large energy savings that the current "sprawling" metros - still expanding along apartheid lines - were not.
There would also be 22% less carbon emissions resulting from more efficient public transport and less travelling, he added. Government must provide a financial incentive to cities willing to do "in-fill development" - building low-income blocks of flats in land close to the city centre, he said.
While land in city centres was more expensive than land on the "peripheries", government should fund "good land to locate people closer to where they live and work and try to overcome apartheid spatial inequalities", said the FFC's Tania Ajam.
Since 1994, city bosses have built very few low-income blocks of flats in formerly white areas close to the city centres, preferring instead to expand far-flung townships with tiny RDP houses.
The City of Cape Town announced in March that it would use a large piece of land on the city's foreshore to expand the International Convention Centre with a new shopping area, offices, parking bays and hospital.
But with next month's COP17 global government negotiations aimed at agreeing on a limit for carbon emissions, Ncube said high emissions associated with "sprawling" cities were a threat which could not be ignored.
"The cost is real. Climate change induces increases in water and electricity infrastructure expenditures. Municipalities will forgo the provision of essential services as they stretch their budgets to cover the impact of climate change."
FFC chairman Bongani Khumalo said it was up to Parliament to ask the Human Settlements department to follow its recommendations.
The FFC does not have the power to compel the department to do what it suggests. He implied that the Human Settlements department had not listened to the FFC's advice.
After tabling their recommendations in Parliament, the FFC always invited director-generals to a meeting. Khumalo said some departments responded and some did not.
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