Cape Town - Construction for the massive R500 million Acsa Symphony Way housing project in Delft, which will house 3 300 State-subsidised Breaking New Ground (BNG) units, is reportedly progressing well, with construction expected to be completed towards the end of 2026.
The development is being undertaken by Acsa and the City, and as per the memorandum of agreement, the target area for this housing project was Blikkiesdorp, Malawi Camp and Freedom Farm.
On Tuesday, Human Settlements Mayco member Malusi Booi and other City officials visited the new Acsa Symphony Way housing project site to check on its progress.
Booi said: “Much work has already been completed since we visited the site in August last year. Thank you to the project teams for their continued hard work at this site and at all housing projects across the metro.”
The City identified two sites along Symphony Way to be developed for BNG housing where the 3 300 units would be located, and given the scale of the development, this process was expected to take a number of years to be fully completed.
The construction of internal civil services started in April last year and the estimated date for the start of construction of the top structures was July 2024 for Site A, and November 2024 for Site B, subject to development approvals.
Booi encouraged the community to continue to support and work together with the City over the coming years to ensure that the project stayed on track.
However, some community members remained concerned about aspects of the development, as well as the ability of the current infrastructure to sustain the incoming residents – particularly the ability of road infrastructure to handle the expected increase in the traffic volume.
Charles George from the Delft Community Police Forum said it was critical that more resources be made available to ensure the new and old residents were kept safe.
“We can’t keep on building houses without the infrastructure for those houses.
“It’s impossible for us to fight crime if the infrastructure (to service those houses and its people) is not built as well.
“There is already an overflow of people in Delft, all the people that were grabbing land illegally and erecting shacks are hurting the current infrastructure we already have.
“With more people moving in here, we want to see 21st century technology installed within the development. We want to create a safe space for people to live,” George said.
On Facebook, Jimmy Nagan said: “Symphony Road for the most part is a single road carrying almost all the traffic from Delft, Gugulethu, Cross Roads, Blikkiesdorp and Belhar.
“The schools in the area are overflowing already. The nearest station is Unibell which is a twenty minute walk over dangerous roads and the area where the people have to walk through especially in the dark is not safe to say the least.”
