The future of Cape Town's most sensitive site of apartheid forced removals is again in the balance as the city administration, land claimants and national government battle over the redevelopment of District Six.
The city is seeking to block the District Six Beneficiaries Trust from assuming control of residential and commercial development on the 42ha expanse of land overlooking central Cape Town.
City officials argue that the trust's claim to represent former residents is dubious and that it lacks basic mechanisms to govern the massive funding that will flow through the project.
"The core issue is: the city wants to determine what will be the best development vehicle and does not accept that the District Six Trust fairly represents all the claimants," executive director of housing in Cape Town Hans Smit told the Mail & Guardian.
A group of former District Six landowners, meanwhile, has launched an application in the Land Claims Court to stop the trust from acting as the representative of all claimants. That case is expected to be heard in May.
The trust's Anwah Nagia, however, insists that it has earned its legitimacy over decades of campaigning for restitution, and that the majority of the 1 500 beneficiaries support its approach. Opposition to the trust, he suggests, is driven by the electoral hopes of executive mayor Helen Zille. "It is a huge vote catcher," he said.
The chief state law adviser, Enver Daniels, has been mediating between the city, the trust and the regional land claims commission over the trust's draft founding deed, but those talks are now likely to stall as the city rejects a new draft, and Nagia vows to fight back. "There are going to be bloody noses," he said, "and they won't be ours."
A new version of the trust deed, modified following Daniels's intervention, substantially weakens control by the current trustees. They can now be voted out and are to serve five-year rather than life terms, but city officials believe the basic thrust of the draft -- to grant the trust sweeping and possibly illegal powers -- remains.
The new version still insists that the purpose of the trust is "to hold, manage, develop and administer the land on behalf of the restitution claimants/community/beneficiaries" and "to acquire in its own name for the benefit and on behalf of the beneficiaries property whether movable or immovable".
The trust will, it says, "oversee the planning and development of District Six in consultation with [national, provincial and local governments] by appointing the required professional persons and contractors and to award contracts to any person or legal entity to complete the development".
That vision seems to clash directly with an agreement by the intergovernmental District Six task team to avoid conflicts of interest by separating oversight, project management and development roles.
Confusion persists, too, about exactly who the beneficiaries are.
The trust deed offers a broad definition that includes land claimants, people "selected by the formerly disadvantaged community that may be accommodated", people who qualify for housing in the government's N2 Gateway project, and "other persons whom the trustees in their discretion after consultation with [the relevant government bodies] may decide to allocate housing to".
Nagia argues that these provisions are designed to ensure that the redevelopment does not cater to narrow racial or class interests, and that Africans, whose presence in District Six has largely been ignored, are also accommodated.
"The so-called Mitchells Plain people don't have unfettered access, as opposed to people from Langa and Guguletu," he said.
The city, however, points out that the current wording leaves the exact composition of the beneficiary group vague and allows the trustees to decide who will vote for them.
Underlying the city's jitters is a belief that the trust wants to be able to direct redevelopment funding that is likely to run into billions of rands to favoured contractors, and a suspicion that the national departments of land affairs and housing have allied themselves with Nagia in a bid to deny the Democratic Alliance-controlled city the coup of finally delivering restitution in District Six.
Nagia responds that there is not enough of a profit margin in the envisaged development to make corruption worthwhile, saying the city is seeking to "criminalise people" using the Municipal Finance Management Act. "I will fight them to my last drop of blood," he told the M&G.
Behind all the talk of racism and political manoeuvring, however, the city and the trust seem to share similar visions for the final shape of District Six. If anything, it is the national government that wants a more radical scheme.
Both Nagia and the city's Smit speak of 4,000 to 4,500 new dwellings, with construction costs for land-claim beneficiaries cross-subsidised by commercial development.
Of the new dwellings, roughly 1 000 will go to land restitution beneficiaries who lived in District Six and lodged claims before the 1998 deadline; another 1,000 will go to "late comers" who applied belatedly for restitution; 1,000 will go to land-reform beneficiaries who lost homes in other areas of Cape Town and 500 will go to people who are on the waiting list for houses in the N2 Gateway project, including former residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement.
This leaves between 500 and 1,000 units available for commercial developers, as well as room for retail and office space.
"In terms of outcome we share the same vision; the key issue is how we do it in a fair and publicly accountable manner," Smit says.
Officials at the national Housing Department who are close to the task team process cite similar numbers, but other senior government officials speak privately of a much more aggressive approach.
"We need to really bulk up. It is possible to put 30,000 low-cost housing units there, if you look at what has happened in the city with office-to-residential conversions, it is doable," says one person familiar with the debate.
"The trust doesn't have, and can't access the necessary resources to build even 4,000 units. To unlock those resources they've involved national government, and agreed to build according to government policy on integration," this person says, arguing that state rather than private-sector money must drive the development, and state rather than private-sector priorities must shape its outcome.
"The trust came in to provide political and social perspective, and once restitution is effected, the trust will presumably fall away."
The real battle, it seems, may just be beginning. - M&G
The city is seeking to block the District Six Beneficiaries Trust from assuming control of residential and commercial development on the 42ha expanse of land overlooking central Cape Town.City officials argue that the trust's claim to represent former residents is dubious and that it lacks basic mechanisms to govern the massive funding that will flow through the project.
"The core issue is: the city wants to determine what will be the best development vehicle and does not accept that the District Six Trust fairly represents all the claimants," executive director of housing in Cape Town Hans Smit told the Mail & Guardian.
A group of former District Six landowners, meanwhile, has launched an application in the Land Claims Court to stop the trust from acting as the representative of all claimants. That case is expected to be heard in May.
The trust's Anwah Nagia, however, insists that it has earned its legitimacy over decades of campaigning for restitution, and that the majority of the 1 500 beneficiaries support its approach. Opposition to the trust, he suggests, is driven by the electoral hopes of executive mayor Helen Zille. "It is a huge vote catcher," he said.
The chief state law adviser, Enver Daniels, has been mediating between the city, the trust and the regional land claims commission over the trust's draft founding deed, but those talks are now likely to stall as the city rejects a new draft, and Nagia vows to fight back. "There are going to be bloody noses," he said, "and they won't be ours."
A new version of the trust deed, modified following Daniels's intervention, substantially weakens control by the current trustees. They can now be voted out and are to serve five-year rather than life terms, but city officials believe the basic thrust of the draft -- to grant the trust sweeping and possibly illegal powers -- remains.
The new version still insists that the purpose of the trust is "to hold, manage, develop and administer the land on behalf of the restitution claimants/community/beneficiaries" and "to acquire in its own name for the benefit and on behalf of the beneficiaries property whether movable or immovable".
The trust will, it says, "oversee the planning and development of District Six in consultation with [national, provincial and local governments] by appointing the required professional persons and contractors and to award contracts to any person or legal entity to complete the development".
That vision seems to clash directly with an agreement by the intergovernmental District Six task team to avoid conflicts of interest by separating oversight, project management and development roles.Confusion persists, too, about exactly who the beneficiaries are.
The trust deed offers a broad definition that includes land claimants, people "selected by the formerly disadvantaged community that may be accommodated", people who qualify for housing in the government's N2 Gateway project, and "other persons whom the trustees in their discretion after consultation with [the relevant government bodies] may decide to allocate housing to".
Nagia argues that these provisions are designed to ensure that the redevelopment does not cater to narrow racial or class interests, and that Africans, whose presence in District Six has largely been ignored, are also accommodated.
"The so-called Mitchells Plain people don't have unfettered access, as opposed to people from Langa and Guguletu," he said.
The city, however, points out that the current wording leaves the exact composition of the beneficiary group vague and allows the trustees to decide who will vote for them.
Underlying the city's jitters is a belief that the trust wants to be able to direct redevelopment funding that is likely to run into billions of rands to favoured contractors, and a suspicion that the national departments of land affairs and housing have allied themselves with Nagia in a bid to deny the Democratic Alliance-controlled city the coup of finally delivering restitution in District Six.
Nagia responds that there is not enough of a profit margin in the envisaged development to make corruption worthwhile, saying the city is seeking to "criminalise people" using the Municipal Finance Management Act. "I will fight them to my last drop of blood," he told the M&G.
Behind all the talk of racism and political manoeuvring, however, the city and the trust seem to share similar visions for the final shape of District Six. If anything, it is the national government that wants a more radical scheme.
Both Nagia and the city's Smit speak of 4,000 to 4,500 new dwellings, with construction costs for land-claim beneficiaries cross-subsidised by commercial development.
Of the new dwellings, roughly 1 000 will go to land restitution beneficiaries who lived in District Six and lodged claims before the 1998 deadline; another 1,000 will go to "late comers" who applied belatedly for restitution; 1,000 will go to land-reform beneficiaries who lost homes in other areas of Cape Town and 500 will go to people who are on the waiting list for houses in the N2 Gateway project, including former residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement.
This leaves between 500 and 1,000 units available for commercial developers, as well as room for retail and office space.
"In terms of outcome we share the same vision; the key issue is how we do it in a fair and publicly accountable manner," Smit says.
Officials at the national Housing Department who are close to the task team process cite similar numbers, but other senior government officials speak privately of a much more aggressive approach.
"We need to really bulk up. It is possible to put 30,000 low-cost housing units there, if you look at what has happened in the city with office-to-residential conversions, it is doable," says one person familiar with the debate.
"The trust doesn't have, and can't access the necessary resources to build even 4,000 units. To unlock those resources they've involved national government, and agreed to build according to government policy on integration," this person says, arguing that state rather than private-sector money must drive the development, and state rather than private-sector priorities must shape its outcome.
"The trust came in to provide political and social perspective, and once restitution is effected, the trust will presumably fall away."
The real battle, it seems, may just be beginning. - M&G
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