Infrastructure

(a – b) I welcome the opportunity of presenting to the House details of what is clearly an often - misunderstood process. Let me begin by addressing the premise of the question.

In the Western Cape, land release is not an event — it is part of a disciplined, end-to-end delivery system. Experience has over many years taught us that simply releasing land, without a plan to develop it, does not automatically create housing — it creates stagnation and frustration.

That is why our approach is structured around three key principles, as follows:

First: How we identify land

In this step we prioritise land based on:

Proximity to jobs, transport, and economic activity

• Availability of bulk infrastructure
• Readiness for development within a realistic timeframe

Because location matters.

That is exactly why we are unlocking well-located parcels such as:

• Prestwich Precinct
• Leeuloop
• Founders Garden

These are not peripheral projects. They are deliberately positioned in areas of opportunity and services created to support a meaningful society

Second: Understanding the pipeline.

The Honourable Member asks what proportion of land has resulted in completed housing units.

But this question reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how infrastructure delivery works.

Land release is not the final step — it is the entry point into a pipeline – a pipeline made up of a number of key stages.

• Concept
• Feasibility
• Planning approvals
• Funding alignment
• Construction

Each of these phases must be completed properly — otherwise projects fail.

What we are doing in the Western Cape is ensuring that:

• Land moves through this pipeline efficiently
• Projects are actively tracked and managed
• Bottlenecks are identified and removed

Third: What this is delivering

This approach is already producing results:

• Major projects like Welmoed and Ithemba, which will be delivering thousands of housing opportunities
• Inner-city developments now moving from planning into implementation
• And a Provincial Infrastructure Pipeline of over R132 billion, ensuring long-term delivery at scale

Honourable Speaker,

If you measure success only by completed units at a single point in time, you are in danger of missing the real reform that is underway.

Because what we are building is not just projects —we are building a system that consistently delivers projects. This thinking is clearly set out in three key publications of the Department of Infrastructure, as follows:

• The Western Cape Infrastructure Framework 2050
• The Western Cape Infrastructure Strategy 2050
• The Western cape Infrastructure Implementation Plan 2050

In closing, let me say this clearly:

• Land release without delivery is symbolism.
• In the Western Cape, we build the full pipeline — from land to opportunity.

And that is why we are not only releasing land — we are turning it into real, scalable delivery linked to real opportunities for the people of this Province.