The Walmer Housing Development

Roofs easily blowing off, concrete crumbling and walls collapsing because of poor quality building materials are the circumstances many people in Port Elizabeth are living in. Thankfully, large housing developments for people in these community areas will soon cause different circumstances.

The innovative Sakhasonke Village project is a fully government-subsidised housing development project next to Walmer Township. The General Motors Foundation came up with the idea for this project. Their task is to promote national replication of innovative and developmental ideas in housing and education.

Although the project was conceived by the GMF, the Walmer Housing Development Trust in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, the GM South Africa Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, the Eastern Cape housing department, the Urban Services Group as well as Metroplan took full responsibility for its logistics.

Approximately 337 houses have already been built and provided a new model for providing acceptable housing for families with a monthly income of below R1 500. A total of 337 semi-detached double-storey freehold units have been constructed, with each fully serviced unit having a floor space of 46m². More and more families are seeing the many benefits of this fantastic development.

In fact, this project is so fantastic that Trust has won the South African Housing Foundation’s 2006 National Housing Award in the category “housing project of the year for units under R80 000”!

This fantastic property development will definitely change the lives of many people.