Abstract
Housing affordability in South Africa has been a significant challenge in recent decades. Efforts from both government and private sector have been unable to quell the ever-expanding deficit of housing in the country, especially at the lower end of the residential market. Small-scale or ‘micro-developers’ are beginning to respond to the scarcity of affordable housing by providing low-cost rental stock, typically in the form of 4–10 unit blocks on existing residential erven. Using ten cases in Delft South and Ilitha Park in Cape Town, the paper describes the micro-development process in order to better understand the opportunities and challenges associated with this phenomenon. The findings revealed that there are mainly two different types of micro-developers; the ‘homeowner-developer’ and the ‘enterprise-developer’, and this distinction defines how they respond to the structure inherent to the local context. According to estimates provided by the respondents, financial performance of the projects is extremely good. However, access to affordable finance and a lack of formal construction management skills were identified as the major challenges encountered by these developers. A better understanding of the opportunities and challenges of micro-development is vital in supporting these developers as agents of urban change in low-income areas in South Africa.
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