Windhoek faces N$1 bn-a-year housing gap

City of Windhoek official Theunis Heunis says the capital city requires more than N$1 billion annually over the next decade to meaningfully address its housing crisis.

Presenting at a recent stakeholder engagement at the Von Bach Dam, section engineer for housing Heunis said the scale of underfunding is now the single biggest obstacle to addressing the city’s growing housing backlog.

“If we really want to solve Windhoek’s crisis, we need close to, at least over a billion dollars every year, consistently over the next 10 years,” he said during a recent stakeholder engagement.

The warning comes as approximately 231 000 people, or 46.1% of Windhoek’s estimated 495 000 residents, continue to live in informal settlements.

“That in itself equates to a backlog of close to 65 000 houses,” Heunis said.

Heunis stressed that Windhoek’s situation is unique compared to other towns, with around 150 informal settlements recorded across the city.

“No other town is even exceeding 150… all of them are in the ranges of 30s and 20s,” he said. “So, Windhoek itself is in trouble.”

He attributed the surge to ongoing rural-to-urban migration, driven by uneven development across the country. “Everyone is flocking to Windhoek… you cannot stop migration. You cannot stop people coming into Windhoek,” he said.

Backlog moving

Despite growing demand, the City’s plans have been repeatedly scaled down due to limited funding.

Heunis said the municipality requires roughly N$900 million annually to service land for tens of thousands of plots, yet allocations remain far below that threshold.

A request for N$1.3 billion for land servicing and housing this year has effectively been reduced to about N$200 million through council resources.

“So now you can see we are coming down from what we wanted to do to what we can afford,” Heunis said.

As a result, delivery targets have been sharply cut. Planned servicing of more than 3 000 plots has been reduced to around 400, while housing construction has dropped from 600 units to just 40. “All of our strategies have to come down based on the minimum budget,” he said.

“The central thing why this process is not moving… is budget and funding.”

Infrastructure costs continue to widen the gap. Heunis said servicing 5 000 plots, excluding roads, would cost about N$1.5 billion, while addressing the broader backlog could require as much as N$17 billion.

At the same time, national targets to eradicate 50% of informal settlements by 2030 remain in place. “That’s in the next four years. That’s bad,” he said.

Windhoek’s informal settlement population alone now exceeds the total population of Rundu, underscoring the scale of pressure on the capital.

“Even our informal settlements are bigger than Rundu,” Heunis said. 

The City has identified several development areas, including Khomasdal, Rocky Crest, Otjomuise, and Havana, but these projects are expected to deliver fewer than 1 000 housing opportunities combined.

Looking ahead, Heunis warned that Windhoek will increasingly have to shift towards higher-density housing due to land constraints. “We will have to densify, we will have to build more flats,” he said. “But unfortunately… that’s where we are headed. My kids and your kids will not be staying in houses anymore, they’ll be staying in flats.”

With demand continuing to outstrip supply, Heunis cautioned that without sustained financial support, the housing backlog will keep expanding.

“The problem is every year the backlog is just moving, and moving, and moving,” he said.