Aune Shikongo

Business Tech released an article titled ‘The Big Shift in South Africa’s rental market’ on 23 January 2023. That country’s Department of Public Works and Infrastructure gazetted a comprehensive document to update the norms and standards for all rental housing. The document highlights the approach of how to deal with the big shift in social housing in the country. 

The norms and standards are to be incorporated into the National Housing and Settlements Code that will identify and define what is expected of the various forms of rental housing in South Africa. Similarly, Namibia’s Ministry of Urban and Rural Development (MURD), the Namibia University of Science and Technology, the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia and other partners in Namibia are reviewing the National Housing Policy. 

The policy’s focal point will be to open up housing opportunities for the key target groups (ultra-low and low-income households) at the necessary scale. The new policy focuses on two key programmes: Participatory Informal Settlements Upgrading (PISU) and Sustainable Incremental Greenfield Development (SIDG), focused on the development of new serviced land, to mitigate the development of new informal settlements. The policy also entails new regulatory review, development of incentives, and urban densification to expand spatial opportunities.  The emerging issue of informal rentals or ‘’backyard rentals’’ in South Africa is no new issue to Namibia. The South African government has encouraged municipalities to designate areas, and encourage the upgrading of the stock over time rather than enforcing the norms and standards in a way that destroys the backyard rental market that already exists in their communities. 

Walvis Bay is one of the towns with most informal backyard rentals in Namibia, and this could be a great opportunity for Namibia to regulate the backyard rental market in a legitimate manner. The backyard rental market is significant as it provides rental housing across income groups, but especially in the affordable housing market, where there is a lack of housing. It also provides low-income households with entrepreneurial and job- creation opportunities, and plays a key role in the compaction and densification of cities and towns as well as better utilising existing infrastructure investments. 

Backyard rentals are often in well-located areas and as a result, it provides low-income households with access to urban amenities. If there is a further unregulated and uncontrolled nature of these backyard rentals, they can frequently strain infrastructure and degrade living conditions due to overcrowding and tenants’ lack of access to essential services. 

*Aune Shikongo is a Junior Researcher at the Institute of Land, Livelihoods and Housing at the Namibia University of Science and Technology, and a final-year Land Administration student at NUST.