Abstract
The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) and other South African cities are embarking on a journey of restructuring cities towards inclusion and integration; this is done through the formulation of inclusionary housing policy. Inclusionary housing refers to rules or planning techniques that mandate or offer incentives to private developers to include affordable or social housing as part of their market-driven developments. The CoJ adopted its first inclusionary housing policy in February 2019, which requires private developers to preserve a percentage of 30% for affordable housing. However, the concept of inclusionary housing is new in South Africa. Therefore, there is limited research on the effects of the CoJ inclusionary housing policy and there are no explicit studies that inform inclusionary housing in the South African context.
The aim of this research is to understand the effectiveness of the CoJ inclusionary housing policy in the provision of affordable housing. The study employed a qualitative research approach; using semi-structured interviews as a data collection instrument to collect and conduct primary and secondary data. Two semi-structured interviews were prepared, involving relevant municipal officials and private developers situated in the CoJ. The data that was collected from the study was analysed using thematic data analysis in order to derive key themes. Based on the research findings which is a combination of literature and data collection, this research concludes that the inclusionary housing policy is a must in the CoJ. It is evident that the policy effectively contributed to the provision of affordable housing. The research findings revealed that since the inception of the policy, there are households now residing in areas where, in the absence of this policy, their housing in such locations would have been unattainable (See Image 2). However, to achieve the envisioned objectives of the inclusionary housing policy, more clarity and assistance are needed in order to effectively implement the policy using the calculator. Moreover, further research and drawing lessons from cities such as California can play a pivotal role in maturing the policy’s implementation.