Residents of Chatsworth outside Cape Town say they plan to take the Housing Development Agency (HDA) to court for failing to keep a promise to build them houses, reports GroundUp.

In June 2014 the HDA bought 700 hectares of land from Servcon Housing Solutions (Pty) Ltd for R5m.

Now, eight years later, residents are worried the houses may never be built.

Part of the land has already been donated to another state department and a group of people have erected structures on a portion of the land.

Sarah Fabie founded the Chatsworth Advice & Development office in 2015 and volunteers to help the community.

She said they have had several meetings with the HDA, which has been fruitless and that their next step is to get a lawyer for an application to compel the agency to start the ‘long overdue’ project.

Swartland Municipality’s acting municipal manager, Jo-Ann Krieger, said that since 2014, they had made various attempts to obtain the necessary power of attorney from the HDA to take the planned future housing project forward but was unsuccessful.

She said a school was built on part of the land and was already transferred to the Department of Public Works & Transport.

‘The municipality can only initiate projects when we receive the necessary funding from the Department of Human Settlements. Housing is done according to the housing pipeline which is updated annually and approved by the mayoral committee and council,’ said Krieger.

HDA spokesperson Katlego Moselakgomo said the mandate of the HDA does not allow it to build houses independently of municipalities.

‘The agency is mandated to develop as and when instructed, funded and permitted by the municipalities and provinces,’ he said.

Full GroundUp report