MyCiTi evictions are ‘like District 6

Cape Town - Mixed communities in Plumstead and Wynberg say the construction of a MyCiTi “freeway” through their peaceful suburbs will, like the Group Areas Act of apartheid, rip apart their neighbourhoods and their families.

More than 30 City of Cape Town tenants – including pensioners, single mothers and families with children at nearby schools – have been served with notices by the city’s property department, instructing them to move out of their council-owned homes by January next year.

“They’ve just thrown us out like dogs,” said Mogamat Bester, head of the South Road Families Association. “We are ratepayers and we pay rent.”

Others said the planned evictions harked back to the days of District Six, when families were scattered across the peninsula after the bulldozers moved in.

Bester, who was given his notice to vacate a few weeks ago, has vowed to fight the evictions. Legal advice has already been sought, and Bester is working on getting signed petitions of support from the area’s schools, churches and mosques.

He said it was understood that there were three phases to the city’s proposed MyCiTi route: the South Road demolition, the Brodie Road couplet in Wynberg and eventually the Constantia Road couplet.

Bester spoke to the Cape Argus on behalf of some of the residents who were shell-shocked after hearing at last week’s meeting of the Wynberg Residents and Ratepayers’ Association that the road was a “done deal”.

One resident, who has lived in her house since the late 1960s, was too ill to attend the meeting. Another spoke of the toll the uncertainty was having on her health.

But amid the anxiety and anger, there was also a strong sense of community and compassion. Recurring comments were “we’ll fight this together” and “we are not leaving”.

Ironically, the city’s intention to go ahead with a road scheme that was first mooted during apartheid to divide Wynberg along racial lines, has united residents of all races and religions in opposition.

For some, like Duncan Human, 76, this is not the first time they have stared eviction in the face.

Human, who has lived in Pluto Road, Plumstead, for more than 40 years, took the city to court in 2008 when he was first told to vacate his property.

He won his case.

“This is disturbing news for me. I’m 76 years old. Where am I going to go to? I’ve been through this before.”

The residents are adamant that they don’t want to leave.

“We don’t want alternatives, we want to stay here,” said John Abrahams. “We want public participation. There’s a highway coming through and it will bring noise and an influx of people to our area.”

One of the residents claimed he was told that if he did not like the city’s plans, he could live in Blikkiesdorp.

Lisa Miller’s house in Pluto Road will be flattened to make way for a MyCiTi bus stop. The planned road will have a devastating impact on her family.

“We can’t afford to buy a house, so I will have to take my daughter out of school and move to Pretoria where I can stay with family.”

Miller will have to leave her husband, a policeman, behind in Cape Town as he will be able to stay at the barracks.

Joanne Louw lives with her mother, a pensioner, and her 14-year-old son. She’s delighted that he has been accepted at a leading high school in the area. But, now she will have to find somewhere else to live.

“We will sit with our belongings in our gardens,” she said.

Another mother of three is concerned about schooling options. One of her daughters is at Vista Nova, and the school’s bus picks her up at their home.

“Where we are now, we are comfortable and safe. And now for council to tell us we have to move…”

The city has confirmed that tenants renting city-owned properties have been given four months’ notice to vacate their houses and to find alternative accommodation.

Brett Herron, mayoral committee member for Transport for Cape Town, said the bus lanes along South Road would “by and large” fall within the road reserve defined by the original scheme that was approved by the Protea Subcouncil in 2002.

He said the properties were acquired by the city over a period specifically for the purpose of the road scheme and “it was always the city’s intention that these properties would be demolished to make way for the construction of the proposed road”.

But Kristina Davidson, of the Wynberg Residents and Ratepayers’ Association, said a town planner had indicated earlier this year that the couplet road for a bus service made no sense as it would simply place a bus lane parallel to the existing railway line.

It was recommended that the bus rapid transit (BRT) should end at the Wynberg Transport Interchange where commuters could switch to a taxi or train.

Davidson said Wynberg was an area of high pedestrian activity and the proposed couplet would create a one-way “race track” with limited pedestrian access.

“The city regards the road scheme as part of the long-term ‘mobility solution’. Yet those same schemes were developed in the 1950s and 1960s, when the car was king and building roads was all the rage. The proposed couplet/South Road makes sense if the aim is to increase car mobility but does not make sense in terms of accessibility for passengers.”

It was also contrary to the national public transport strategy which called for integrated public transport networks.

“It would appear that the BRT concept is being misused to get funding for a road scheme that nobody wants,” she said.

anel.lewis@inl.co.za

- Cape Argus

Judge slams District Six building

Cape Town - Cape Peninsula University of Technology’s (CPUT) management has been taken to task by its council’s former chairman who says the institution has a lack of sensitivity about District Six – the land it is situated on.

Judge Siraj Desai has spoken out about CPUT’s construction of residences on a prominent District Six memorial site, saying the university’s current management must be “oblivious” to the history of the land.

“I was extremely surprised to see a building springing up on campus territory,” he said on Wednesday.

Judge Desai said he attended the inauguration of CPUT’s rector and vice-chancellor, Dr Prins Nevhutalu, and noticed that in his speech there was no reference to District Six.

“It appeared to me as if he was oblivious to the sensitive nature of the land,” Judge Desai said.

He felt that the insensitivity of building on land that held a memorial cairn for District Six and its former residents, especially “on the spine of Hanover Street”, showed that CPUT failed to understand the “savagery which underpinned its demolition”.

Judge Desai, a senior judge of the Western Cape High Court, said he had been a “regular opponent” whenever there had been talk of building in District Six.

He is the former chairman of the CPUT council, has long been involved in District Six preservation campaigns and still continues to sit on the board of the District Six Museum.

In the late 1990s , then minister of education Sibusiso Bengu appointed Judge Desai to the council of the then Cape Technikon, now CPUT, and told him at the time: “What I want you to do is protect the people of District Six.”

Throughout his time on the council, he said, he adopted the position that District Six must always have a representative, someone who was “acutely aware of the sensitive nature of the land”.

“At that stage, whether it was written or not, the university adopted the position that there be no further developments in District Six. Not until land restitution had been resolved,” Judge Desai said.

“In my time no buildings were erected on District Six land.”

He said everyone on the council respected that the institution might have title to the land, but that title did not make legitimate the illegal dispossession of District Six.

“I do not know when and how the campus changed its position.”

He said that in the past there had been people in the community who felt that the campus “must be razed to the ground brick by brick” because some had “adopted the position that the apartheid grand plan was to locate it there to obliterate the memory of District Six”.

But Judge Desai said he resisted that call, believing that the campus could become an integral part of the emerging community in District Six.

“But that’s hardly likely with the current leaders.”

Now he wants to warn CPUT that after 40 or more years of campaigning for the land to be restored to its rightful owners nobody is going to give up at this stage.

“There is no resolution of this matter and there will be no resolution of this matter until management begins to understand the historic sensitivity of this land,” he added.

And he called for Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande to follow in the progressive view adopted by his predecessor Bengu and protect the interests of the area and its people.

CPUT spokesman Thami Nkwanyane said he could not comment on the new campus residence or any claims of violation from the District Six Museum “until further notice”.

After a meeting with the District Six Museum last Thursday, he told the Cape Times that it had ended amicably, but museum director Bonita Bennett later said it still needed answers as well as an apology for what she called CPUT’s wrongdoing.

- Cape Times

Progress for district six: Nkwinti

Work on the third phase of the District Six housing development will start next week, Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti said on Saturday.

"We want to build... We want to start next week," he said to a cheering crowd of around a thousand people in central Cape Town.

"We want old people, please, old people [are a] priority. That would be the best news for this Christmas: that all the old people are back in District Six."

Residents were forcibly removed from the area in the 1960s, following the introduction of the Group Areas Act.

Around 1200 claimants had since opted to return to the area.

In the first phase, 24 units were built while 115 units were built in the second phase. All units had been allocated and title deeds were expected to be transferred by June.

Nkwinti organised a meeting on Saturday to report on the progress that had been made and arrangements in place for phase three, which would begin with bulk earthworks this month to prepare for construction.

A marquee was erected for the meeting on a piece of land donated by the neighbouring Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).

Provincial land restitution chief director Michael Worsnip said power of attorney was still needed from CPUT and political principles still needed to give approval before phase three housing could be built on the land.

But Nkwinti said the land claimants had waited long enough and he had spoken to Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande to fast track development.

Zubeida Samsodien of the District Six reference group said over 300 dwellings would be built.

"The reality is that we do not believe from our engagement with the department that all the outstanding validated claimants will be back by the end of 2014," she said.

The crowd welcomed her announcements that no one would have to pay R225,000 for a house and would be exempted from rates for the first 10 years after occupation.

Some had opted for financial compensation instead of an apartment or row house.

Nkwinti handed over 59 financial vouchers to a grinning row of beneficiaries, the oldest of which was 84 years old and had to be assisted with walking.

The minister thanked the reference group for their hard work since being elected by the community last year.

"I have lost power completely. They are running in front and I am running behind them," he said.

- Timeslive

District Six family offered Blikkiesdorp home

Cape Town - The city has told the remaining family living illegally in a District Six apartment complex that they will be provided with a new home in Blikkiesdorp “on humanitarian grounds”.

This follows a ruling, made by Western Cape High Court Judge Robert Henney on June 20, that the city must help find the family of Galeema Stoffels, 70, accommodation because she has grandchildren with her.

Stoffels was part of the Khoi group that on June 15 occupied 11 units in a housing development meant for Group Areas Act returnees, but their action was condemned by the Khoi-san Council, officially recognised by the government.

She is living in one of the units with her daughter Isa Isaacs, who is in her 40s, and Isaacs’s two children, aged 9 and 11.

The rest of the 40-strong group was evicted on June 21.

On June 20, Judge Henney said Stoffels and her family could not be evicted like other group members, and the city should find alternate accommodation for the family.

The trust that manages the apartment complex said “legitimate” claimants had been waiting to move into the units, when they were occupied.

On Monday, Stoffels received a legal letter from the city, informing her that she could move into a “unit” in Delft Symphony Temporary Relocation Area, commonly called Blikkiesdorp on “humanitarian grounds”.

“The city does not believe that it is obliged to provide you with formal housing outside of its normal housing policy and allocations ahead of those lawfully awaiting same,” read the letter.

“(The city) is also not obliged to provide you with emergency accommodation in view of the fact that you broke into the unit at District Six which you occupy. If, however, you and your family are to be genuinely rendered homeless should you be evicted, our client is prepared, on humanitarian grounds, to offer you a unit at (Blikkiesdorp).”

The unit in Blikkiesdorp will be on its own plot, have access to electricity and share flush toilets and water with four other families.

Stoffels said she would refuse to be “relocated” to Blikkiesdorp, but might consider moving elsewhere.

Tania Kleinhans, a spokeswoman for the group that occupied the units, said they were unhappy with the city’s offer.

“(The family of Galeema Stoffels) are aborigines who are being removed from the place of their birth,” she said.

She said the group’s occupation of units in the complex three weeks ago was not about housing, but about bringing attention to the rights of aborigines who should be allowed to live on “ancestral Khoi land”.

Stoffels has been given until Tuesday to accept the offer. This is the date the court will decide if its earlier interim eviction against the group should be finalised.

- Cape Times

District Six squatters’ issue new threat

Cape Town - A handful of the people who had illegally occupied a block of flats in District Six 10 days ago were back there on Sunday with fresh plans to occupy more land in the area.

This follows last week’s decision by Western Cape High Court Judge Robert Henney who ruled that all the illegal occupiers should leave the flats except for one family who had two minor children. The Rural Development and Land Reform department and the trustees of the District Six Beneficiary and Redevelopment Trust, approached the court to have the squatters evicted.

Galiema Stoffels, Riedewaan and Isa Isaacs and two minor children (who were not named in the court papers) have been allowed to remain in Flat 12A until the group’s next court appearance on July 9.

But on Sunday afternoon, when the Cape Argus visited the block of flats, the flat stood empty and security guards said the family had left.

Tania Kleinhans, co-founder of the Institute for the Restoration of the Aborigine of South Africa and one of the occupiers who vacated the flats on Friday, explained that the family was not in the flat because they had taken Stoffels to see a doctor.

“Galiema (Stoffels) is stressed and traumatised. They were given strict orders about who can visit – basically they are living under quarantine because the order was not specific. Galiema has not been sleeping and her son-in-law took her to a doctor.”

Kleinhans said although there were only 11 flats listed in the court order, the group had actually occupied about 20 flats and that some of their posters and clothes were still in the flats.

She said they were still in the area living with friends while they were making contingency plans.

“We are occupying more land tomorrow,” she said pointing to an open piece of land next to the flats.

Members of the Concerned Ex-residents of District Six also joined Kleinhans and her group outside the block of flats on Sunday.

Yusuf Samuels explained that they represented 860 Lentegeur residents who were also forcibly removed from District Six during apartheid. Samuels said his old house in District Six was still standing and he had been trying to get it back since the 1980s.

“Up until today, we are on the outside. The trust is not playing its part because they are keeping us in the dark.” Samuels said it would be better if the trust was dismantled because “they are of no benefit to us.”

Anwah Nagia, District Six Beneficiary and Redevelopment Trust chairman said on Sunday that the family in Flat 12A would only be allowed to stay there until alternative accommodation was found for them in Blikkiesdorp.

With regards to criticism from Lentegeur residents, Nagia said: “We are not unduly concerned about people who do not like us. We help everybody. Some people will like us and some will hate us.”

- Cape Argus

Tears and anger over District Six invasion

Cape Town - As the illegal District Six housing occupation entered its fifth day on Wednesday, the street outside the complex where about 50 people have taken over seven flats became a site of heated debate and emotion for apartheid evictees from the area.

The group occupied vacant flats in Aspelling Street on Saturday.

On Monday, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform and the District Six Beneficiary and Redevelopment Trust secured an interim high court order for the occupiers to leave, but the order has not been enforced.

The matter is set to be brought before the high court again on Thursday.

Pensioners from Cape Flats neighbourhoods, many who identified themselves as beneficiaries registered with the trust, gathered in Aspelling Street to debate the occupation.

Some beneficiaries jeered the occupiers, calling them “queue jumpers” and “scoundrels”. Others pledged solidarity with them, and vowed to join them amid complaints of a botched handover process.

Some of the units being occupied have been finished, yet unoccupied, since 2011.

“Fifteen years of being told to wait, to fill out forms, to attend meetings, and then more forms. If they occupy these flats, we should join them. Because we are fed up,” said Yasmiena Ismail, 55.

Also coming out in support of the occupiers was Daphne Lambert-Moses, 72, who said that she had been evicted three times under apartheid – from Sea Point, Mowbray and District Six. Her family had owned three properties in District Six, she said.

A stand-off with security saw her being blocked at the housing development’s gates as she vowed to take a group of people in to join the occupation.

After an emotional outburst about the indignity and injustice that her family suffered at the hands of the apartheid state, she broke down and wept uncontrollably.

Other former District Six inhabitants, Ismail’s friends, had an opposing view. Zubeida Fortuin, 62, called the occupiers illegitimate and branded them queue jumpers.

Tania Kleinhans, the occupiers’ representative and co-founder of the Institute for the Restoration of the Aborigines of SA (Irasa), complained that some of the observers had accused the Khoisan of having no legitimate claim to land in District Six.

The invaders justify their claim to the units by citing their ancestry from the Cape’s first Khoisan inhabitants.

These “aboriginal rights to land” underpin a notice of motion issued by Kleinhans and will likely be key in the occupiers’ high court argument against eviction.

Kleinhans has employed the assistance of Legal Aid, which is expected to ask for a postponement in court on Thursday. Kleinhans said international aboriginal rights lawyers were also being petitioned to assist the occupiers.

- Cape Argus

‘Queue-jumpers’ stay put

Cape Town - With the sheriff of the Western Cape High Court missing from the scene of an illegal housing invasion in District Six yesterday, tensions rose between the occupants and the complex’s permanent residents.

Residents accused the invaders of being “queue-jumpers”, while the families who have taken over units in the development in Aspelling Street have rubbished the process by which those residents received houses.

Sixteen beneficiaries were to have received keys to the vacant units this week, said District Six Beneficiary and Redevelopment Trust chairman Anwar Nagia.

One of the beneficiaries who claims to be on the list for this second phase of key handovers is Oesman Begg, whose family were removed from nearby Muir Street in the mid-1970s.

Begg, 63, said he put in a claim with the trust in 2003. He said Rural Development Minister Gugile Nkwinti had told him at a recent meeting that he would not have to pay for the unit.

“I saw the news of this occupation in the press and had to drive here from Mitchells Plain to see for myself. It is heartbreaking,” he said.

“They did not tell me which unit would be mine, so it could be any one of those now being occupied. I have waited patiently and long, now I hear that I will have to wait even longer.

“My dying wish is to return to District Six. These people are trying to jump the queue.”

The group of about 60 invaders claim ancestry from the original Khoisan inhabitants of Table Bay. Some say they were evicted from District Six during apartheid.

They occupied seven units on Saturday and have refused to move - prompting the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform and the trust to petition the high court to bring an application for an interim court eviction order. The order was granted on Monday, and the families were told to move out by 10am yesterday, but by late on Tuesday the sheriff had not arrived to enforce the order.

Throughout the day, members of the Institute for Restoration of the Aborigines of SA performed rituals, sang songs in a Khoisan dialect, and explained their status as descendents of “South Africa’s first peoples” to reporters.

The group claimed the Cochoqua were the first inhabitants of the Cape Flats, but Keith Gottschalk, a University of the Western Cape political scientist, said it was the Gorochoqua and the Goringhaiqua clans who had inhabited the area. Because there were no written documents or birth certificates from that time, it would be interesting to know how the group were going to prove they were who they claimed to be, Gottschalk said.

The occupants are to file opposing papers on Thursday.

- Cape Argus

Khoi activists to ask for stay of eviction

Cape Times - The group of Khoi activists who occupied several units in a District Six apartment complex on Saturday are to submit papers to the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday morning asking for a stay of an eviction order against them.

The group was meant to be evicted from 11 units on Wednesday morning, but wants a stay until the members are able to dispute the contents of the original eviction order in the Western Cape High Court on Thursday.

Their papers state that the eviction order made by Judge Robert Henney on Monday had not stipulated what time they had to leave the units, and was therefore not applicable.

Tania Kleinhans, head of the Institute for Restoration of the Aborigines of South Africa, has been chosen by the group to put its case to the court tomorrow.

At this stage it is not clear if Kleinhans will be accompanied by a lawyer.

The papers set out how Kleinhans will argue the group’s case, that it be allowed to remain in the units: “We will show that the reclaiming of land process has been bedevilled with problems since inception,” state the papers.

“The voices of the claimants have not been listened to.”

The group will also argue that the “human dignity of the claimants has been compromised”, as some are homeless and live in backyards without electricity or running water.

Kleinhans will also argue that only a few legitimate claimants have been able to move back to District Six.

The group occupied the units in the housing development on Saturday, claiming the area as “ancestral Khoi land”.

On Monday, Western Cape High Court Judge Henney granted an interim eviction order against the group, saying the claimants had to leave the units on Tuesday.

If the group did not vacate the units, Henney said, the sheriff of the court was entitled to expel them on Wednesday with police aid.

But the group has vowed to stay.

The complex, completed in 2011, includes 115 units earmarked for beneficiaries of a District Six resettlement initiative.

The application to evict the group was brought by The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, together with the trust that manages the apartment complex.

The department said yesterday that the “legitimate” owners of the units were set to move in on Saturday, but this process had now been put on hold.

Each unit is valued at about R1.2 million.

Khoi-Mac, one of the group’s spokesmen, said if evicted they would move on to an open field opposite the complex.

Group member Arthur Martin said a handful of frail occupiers had left during the night, as they feared being “manhandled” by the police.

- Cape Times

District Six face-off

Cape Town - Tensions were rising in District Six on Tuesday morning, with the Sheriff of the Court due to evict families occupying seven units of a housing development.

The families said they were prepared to stand firm in defiance of a High Court order ordering them to leave.

The Sheriff had not arrived by the 10am deadline set on monday by Judge Robert Henney in his interim order.

Some in the group of around 60 people claim ancestry from the original Khoisan inhabitants of Table Bay, while others say they are land claimants whose families were evicted from District Six under apartheid.

They have been occupying the units since Saturday.

The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform and the trustees of the District Six Beneficiary and Redevelopment Trust brought an application asking the Western Cape High Court for an eviction order.

The occupants are due to return to court on Thursday when they will be allowed to file opposing papers.

Tania Kleinhans, co-founder of the Institute for Restoration of the Aborigines of South Africa (Irasa) and an occupant of one of the units, said they believed the process of land restitution in the area had been fraught with corruption, and that the trust was an illegal body.

The group said they were representing themselves and had not employed a lawyer to file papers on their behalf on Thursday. Kleinhans said they would instead march to the High Court at 2pm and ask for the order to be rescinded.

Asked about the eviction order, the occupants responded emotionally.

“The battle is on. The court will come up against the tongue, heart and spirit of my ancestors if they try to remove me,” said Arthur Martin, who says his family were evicted from District Six when he was 19.

Most of them referred to injustices and “land theft” perpetrated by settlers against the Khoisan as legitimacy for their claims to the units.

“I’m not an infiltrator in this country. There was no agreement between the settlers and the Khoisan.

“I have lost my language, my dignity, my culture at the hands of those settlers. But today I say that I have a legitimate claim to this land,” said Mac Halloway.

Fagmieya Taliep, who said her family owned a number of homes in the area before being forcibly removed to a small house in Heideveld, took issue with the fact that some of the housing units were being leased to foreign tenants.

In court yesterday, advocate Paul Tredoux, representing the applicants, said the group had to be evicted urgently because the flats were earmarked for District Six land claimants who are due to move in on Saturday.

Tredoux said the group was also causing tension at the property because they had vandalised some of the doors by using a crowbar to gain access.

- Cape Argus

Court evicts ‘Khoisan descendants’ from flats

Cape Town - The Western Cape High Court has given a group of people claiming to be descendants of the Khoisan, who have illegally occupied seven District Six flats since Saturday, until 10am on Tuesday to vacate the properties.

The group consists of 15 families who say they belong to the Cochoqua clan, the original Khoisan people who lived in the area stretching from Table Bay to St Helena Bay.

The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform and the trustees of the District Six Beneficiary and Redevelopment Trust brought an application asking the court for an eviction order.

Advocate Paul Tredoux, representing the applicants, said in court that the group had to be evicted urgently because the flats they occupied were earmarked for District Six land claimants who were due to move in on June 22.

Tredoux said the group was also causing tension at the property because they had vandalised some of the doors by using a crowbar to gain access to the flats.

The order was served on the group on Sunday night and on Monday all parties met at the court where Judge Robert Henney granted the applicants an interim order in terms of section 5 of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction From and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act 19 of 1998.

In granting the order, Judge Henney said the group had to vacate the property by 10am on Tuesday. They should come back to court on Thursday when they would be allowed to file opposing papers with the help of a lawyer.

“If the respondents do not vacate the property the sheriff of the court should take the necessary steps to effect the order,” he said.

Outside the court, Tania Kleinhans, co-founder of the Institute for the Restoration of the Aborigines of South Africa (Irasa), who is also one of the illegal occupants, said the court order was inhumane.

“Why would you grant an order to say we need to leave by 10am on Tuesday and then say we need to be back in court on Thursday? Why not let us stay until Thursday because we have nowhere to go at the moment? We are just going to have to squat in District Six,” Kleinhans said.

Another member of the group, Mac Halloway, said it was unfair that they were being chased off their ancestral land and not given a fair chance to state their case.

Bishop Gail Lawrence, president of the Aboriginal Council of Churches said she had come to court to support the Khoisan people.

Lawrence said the interim order had worked in favour of the group because they were not asked to vacate the property immediately.

“It worked in their favour that the judge is allowing them to stay there. This will give them enough time to find legal representatives and to organise themselves better and also find time to regroup.”

- Cape Argus

District Six claimants return home

The District Six claimants will return to their homes this year, the Rural Development and Land Reform Department said on Monday.

“Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti told land claimants... that the land claimants who opted for the restoration of their land will this year be able to return to their stands at District Six in Cape Town,” spokesperson Mtobeli Mxotwa said.

Mxotwa said the minister was addressing land claimants in a meeting over the weekend.

“He said the poor people will be given priority by the Social Integration Committee when the empty houses were allocated to the claimants in District Six this year,” he said.

They were urged to register with the committee promptly so they could get their houses “as soon as” this month.

Minister Nkwinti called on the land claimants and their Reference Group to differentiate between the restoration of the land claimants' rights and the business enterprise planned for District Six for its future economic development.

In cases where a person had owned more than one stand, the government would restore one stand and pay financial compensation for other stands.

Land reform beneficiaries, that is people who never lived in District Six before the evictions, would not be considered in the District Six restoration and restitution.

Mxotwa said the restoration of District Six was meant to restore the rights of the people of District Six that were taken away by the apartheid government.

The stands whose owners had opted for financial compensation would be used for business purposes.

Residents were forcibly removed from District Six in the 1960s, following the introduction of the Group Areas Act. - Sapa

Ex-residents return to District Six

Cape Town - They were forcibly removed and their homes demolished in a process that started 47 years ago today.

On Monday morning, about 80 former District Six residents will return to where their houses once stood to reflect on their difficult journey to restitution.

District Six was declared a White Group Area on February 11, 1966. For many, this date signalled the beginning of the destruction of a close-knit community. Families were forcibly removed by the apartheid government and “dumped” on the Cape Flats, including in Bonteheuwel, Mitchells Plain, Langa and Khayelitsha.

On Monday, former residents will go on a “remembrance walk”, starting at the District Six Museum at 11am and ending at the District Six Homecoming Centre, both on Buitenkant Street. “The 47th anniversary is all about holding on to the legacy of District Six, but letting go of the evils of the Native Land Act,” said Bonita Bennett, the director of the District Six Museum and organiser of the walk.

“It’s been a difficult journey for people. They are still waiting for their houses.

“This event allows for them to reflect, revisit the site, and gives government and the District Six redevelopment task team the opportunity to update ex-residents on the restitution process.”

District Six is being redeveloped, managed by the District Six redevelopment task team, headed by the regional Land Claims Commission and the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform.

Claimants were given a full picture of the redevelopment plan at a public exhibition at Trafalgar High School in December 2011.

The redevelopment was expected to be completed towards the end of next year.

In April 2011, during a visit to the site, President Jacob Zuma announced that 2 670 former inhabitants would be returned to the area by 2014. The restitution has spanned more than a decade as claimants have been listed and their claims verified. Some have died waiting to return to the homes they were forced out of.

It will cost about R7 billion to turn the 42 hectares of District Six into a mix of claimants’ housing, commercial and office space, and extra rental housing.

Michael Worsnip, the chief director of restitution support at the regional Land Claims Commission, said they were on track to deliver the houses by the president’s 2014 deadline. “I’m not saying that every last one of the claimants will move in by 2014, but there is an eye on the ball as far as that goes.”

Worsnip said a special-purpose vehicle would be launched in July to drive the process forward.

About Monday’s walk, Bennett said that, as had become a tradition, ex-residents would bring stones from the areas to which they were displaced and walk with these to Hanover Street, where a cairn had evolved from the annual commemorative act.

- Cape Argus

Deadline set for District Six

Cape Town - Former residents of District Six may be able to start returning to their suburb, flattened four decades ago by apartheid bulldozers, land reform minister said on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters in Cape Town ahead of a meeting in the city’s convention centre with District Six land claimants, Minister Gugile Nkwinti said he wanted a February deadline on negotiations, so matters could start to move forward “on the ground.”

Saturday’s meeting - the third the minister has held this year with claimants - is set to get a report-back from two task teams.

One is the so-called technical group, the other a social integration team.

“Today, we get the report, we assess (it) and get a way forward.”

“In February 2013, I want a meeting, where they will elect a vehicle - a trust or company or special purpose vehicle, whatever claimants want - so we can start working. That is my deadline with them.”

There were 1060 District 6 claimants.

“We want matters to be concluded. Those who want to go back to District Six must go back to District Six.

“Those who want to be compensated - remember, you either go back, or you get financial compensation or alternative land - must get this.”

Nkwinti said “a number” of claimants had indicated they wanted compensation, rather than return to District Six.

He did not indicate how many of the claimants wanted compensation. Government had budgeted for this, but it would not release money until claimants had proper legal representatives.

“We have budgeted R700 million for this year and next year. Money is available but it is not going to be released until a legitimate structure is put in place.”

The city and the province was ready for the February deadline. - Sapa

Woman moves in District Six development illegally

An interdict and illegal occupation charges have been brought against a District Six claimant who “invaded” one of the new properties being built.

Rosemary Jacobs, 41, moved in as “restitution for the destruction of the original suburb by the apartheid government”.

Jacobs, who said her grandparents were forcibly removed, and is on a list of verified beneficiaries, also wanted to “expose corruption in the process of restitution”.

Jacobs, along with Tania Kleinhans from the Institute for the Restitution of the Aborigines of SA (Irasa), says that claimants are being “ripped off” by the District Six Beneficiary Trust.

Kleinhans said beneficiaries are being asked for money they do not have to receive their properties.

Last year, the trust said 1,060 claimants had been verified and would get three-bedroom homes worth about R1 million each in the new development. Claimants would be asked to contribute between R50,000 to R225,000 towards their homes. Claimants would not be allowed to sell their homes for at least 15 years.

“I have been on the waiting list. I have moved in on my own with my children. I broke the door and moved in on Monday. The police came here several times threatening to arrest me,” Jacobs told the Cape Argus.

Gary Ludwig, a beneficiary who has paid and moved into his property, claimed he had not received legal documents showing he owns the property.

“I live here and they would not let me move in without paying. We were granted restitution and banks won’t bond the houses. Where do they expect me to find the money? There are many empty houses because people cannot afford to pay,” he said.

District Six Beneficiary Trust chief executive Nas Ally said Jacobs had jumped the queue on the waiting list.

“She should be ashamed of herself. She broke in and invaded a house that has been allocated already. She must wait in line like everyone else. She has a birthright, just like a 1 000 others. There won’t be a free for all,” he said. Ally said 17 people have moved in already.

The plans provide for a total of 5,000 houses. Surplus houses will be available to the public to rent. The money would be used to make up the rest of the finance for claimants’ homes and to sustain the development once it is completed.

The government is providing seed funding for the construction of all claimants’ homes before money gets generated from the extra property. - Cape Argus

Partnerships ‘pivotal to success of District Six’

Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille says a strong partnership between national, provincial and local government and the private sector will be pivotal for the success of the District Six restoration project

CAPE TOWN — A strong partnership between national, provincial and local government and the private sector will be pivotal for the success of the District Six restoration project, Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille said yesterday.

Earlier this month the public was given the opportunity to comment on the final restoration plan. The multibillion-rand project will result in 5000 homes being constructed and once successful claimants have been allocated homes, the rest of the properties will be made available at affordable rates to buyers.

The plan includes extensive details of the mixed-property development, which will include residential and commercial centres along with offices and public spaces.

Ms de Lille said that after many delays and disagreements, there was now optimism that the project would be successfully completed. "District Six is one of the land settlements which was still outstanding and it is important that there is consensus.

"There seems to be an agreement within the community on how the land should be used. Obviously you cannot please everyone, but there is a general consensus."

Ms de Lille said how the public consultation process was handled showed that a partnership between the national, provincial and local governments together with the private sector was important for the success of the project.

Nas Allie, CE of the District Six Redevelopment and Beneficiary Trust, said yesterday that the public consultation process had been very "successful". "The whole purpose of the consultations was for the public to comment and the general impression was positive."

He said the entire project was significant not only from a justice point of view but also from a business perspective. "This project could be replicated elsewhere in the country and could solve the housing crisis."

He said that the project would be completed in seven years’ time. The development of 42ha of land will cost about R7bn. The City of Cape Town will provide the bulk infrastructure for free and the national government will contribute R1,3bn towards the project. Claimants will also be asked to contribute about R225000 on average towards their homes, valued at R1m. Thus, claimants will be given shares in a special purpose vehicle company that would be set up to run the development.

This option meant that the land would still be in the hands of the claimants and revenue would be generated by leasing some of the land.

- BusinessDay

Cracks appear in District Six dream

While 44 families were celebrating their imminent return to District Six after receiving their keys from President Jacob Zuma recently, one of the original returnees was contemplating her eviction.

Mymoena Kreysler, 65, moved into one of the first 24 homes that Nelson Mandela handed over on February 11, 2004 in phase 1 of the redevelopment.

It was her father Ismail Petersen’s claim, but he died four months before the house was ready.

Moving back to the area from which she was forcibly removed as a teenager was a dream come true – until the house started cracking and springing leaks.

There is not one room in the three-bedroomed double-storey house that doesn’t have several cracks and the cornices are leaking.

“Every time the wind blows it feels like it will take the roof off.”

Kreysler, who works at the provincial Health Department, said she started off paying R500 a month towards the R60 000 that the units cost, but stopped some time ago when she saw the defects.

“These homes were clearly built by non-professionals to save money.”

She said she wrote to the District Six Redevelopment and Beneficiary Trust to ask them to address the faults and the fact that none of the 24 families had title deeds to their units, but all she got in return was an eviction order.

“The trust wasn’t prepared to engage with me when I asked questions. I was called a detractor.”

Kreysler said the trust was questioning her father’s claim.

She boycotted the recent “Second Homecoming” celebration held at the Moravian Church, which was attended by Zuma, Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti, Minister of Human Settlements Tokyo Sexwale, and Planning Minister Trevor Manuel.

Kreysler said the trust was supposed to be fighting for the poor but instead they had become “landlords collecting rent”.

District Six Beneficiary Trust executive member Nadeem Hendricks said he could not comment on Kreysler’s case, except to say there was a serious investigation of her claim.

“Our legal team is addressing the matter,” Hendricks said.

He said “two or three” families were not paying.

An investigation was being done of the cracks in the pilot project houses. He said they weren’t due to poor workmanship but were “settling cracks”.

“It is because of the nature of District Six. When the apartheid government threw down the buildings they left the rubble, which meant that the builders had to go down much deeper for the foundations.”

Hendricks said the issue was being investigated by engineers and the project manager. He would would check tomorrow to see how far they had got.

He added that the returning 44 families who received their keys at the ceremony should have moved in to their new homes by the middle of next month.

Also protesting at the ceremony was the District Six Advocacy Committee, which handed over a memorandum to the Office of the Presidency in 2009 calling for a full forensic audit, and full compliance with and enforcement of the Restitution of Land Rights Act of 1994.

Committee chairwoman Tania Kleinhans said the 44 houses in phase 2 were built on land belonging to two of their members, Faizel Essop and the Hendricks family.

They had asked for a moratorium on development until the issue was sorted out, but they had not received a response. - Sunday Argus

Give us 3 years for District 6: Zuma

President Jacob Zuma laid his head on the block over District Six, guaranteeing that development in the area will be completed in the next three years.

“The time is 36 months. Everything will be done and nobody can change that,” he said to huge applause.

Zuma was speaking at the District Six “Second Homecoming” celebration held at the Moravian Church yesterday where 44 returning families were handed the keys to their new homes.

It was a symbolic handover though. Families will not move in immediately because work on the houses is not finished.

The event began two hours late, while some elderly participants waited in wheelchairs in the blazing sun as dignatories enjoyed refreshments in the church hall.

Recipient Esther Cottle, 68, who has been staying in Lentegeur, said she still had to organise a bond of R225 000. As a widow and a pensioner she said she was not sure she would qualify for one, but was excited at the prospect of moving back.

“I really thought it would never happen. I was so shocked when I heard I would be getting keys but we are still waiting to hear about the nitty gritty from the District Six Beneficiary Trust.”

Both Cottle and Helene Paulse, who is the recipient of her father’s claim, have retained strong ties to District Six by attending St Marks Church every Sunday since they were forcibly removed.

A number of disappointed claimants also attended the event in the hope that they would make the next cut.

One of them was Mogamat Yusuf Davids of Bothasig, who was born next to the mosque 70 years ago.

Charmaine Bailey, who lodged her claim in 1996, said she was not sure how the trust chose people as she had been on a list in 2006. Her mother was 81 and they were battling to find out when the next phase of development would start.

Only 68 houses have been built since 2000.

Phase two was supposed to include 114 units but only 44 were handed over yesterday.

Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti said that the remainder would be ready in three to four months and that the necessary funds would be made available.

He said that phase three would be an integrated social and economic development.

Judge Siraj Desai said private developers had been eyeing District Six since 1979 but that a campaign had been launched to prevent this.

He lauded Dr Anwah Nagia, chairman of the trust, for sustaining the campaign.

“For 32 years his mission was to preserve District Six for development for the people of District Six.”

Minister in the Presidency for planning Trevor Manuel echoed the sentiments of a woman calling from the audience who said: “Ons wag te lank. (We’ve waited too long). Let’s get on with this thing.” He told Zuma: “Tell your ministers to sign new agreements to hurry up with District Six.”

A group of Rastas from Hout Bay gathered to chant “restore Hout Bay” and were moved by police.

Also present was Minister of Human Settlements Tokyo Sexwale, Western Cape Minister for Social Development Patricia de Lille and the deputy mayor of Cape Town Ian Nielsen.

- IOL

Feud leaves families homeless

Three District Six families, including a frail 73-year-old pensioner, were left homeless on Tuesday as a long-standing family feud reached boiling point.

“I wonder how my uncle will sleep at night knowing his brother won’t have a place to sleep tonight,” said Pontac Street resident Anwa Essop after he and his father, 73-year-old Ahmed Essop, were among the people evicted, allegedly on his uncle’s instructions, on Tuesday. The eviction was preceded by a long-running battle among Essop family members over 16 cottages left by their late father, Mohamed Omar Essop, to his eight sons.

A trust was set up to administer the property situated between Nelson, Pontac and Aspeling streets, and family member Dr Omar Mohamed was named sole trustee, according to those evicted on Tuesday. They said Mohamed, the brother of Ahmed and Anwa Essop’s uncle, instructed their eviction because he wanted to sell the land to make way for a property development.

However, they insisted he should not be allowed to sell the property as the South African Heritage Resources Agency (Sahra) had declared it a heritage site. “You cannot just break down heritage property,” they said.

Dr Mohamed said on Tuesday the decision to evict his family members was made by the court.

“After 40 years the judge has decided this is the best course of action,” he said.

Earlier, his distraught family members watched as deputy sheriff of the court Gordon Bagley and his workers removed the Essops’ furniture and clothes. Bagley said he was executing a court order made on November 12.

As he helped clear the house he and his family have called home for the past 35 years, Anwa Essop said: “I am devastated. It’s like the carpet has just been pulled from under my feet.”

Unsure where he would spend the night, Essop said he was shocked that his uncle had shown no humanity towards his own family. His daughter was traumatised but Essop said he was also concerned about his father, Ahmed Essop, who had spent a month in hospital after a heart attack because of the ongoing eviction battle.

Ahmed Essop’s wife, Gairo Essop, 72, could not hold back her tears as she relived the pain she felt when she was among 66 000 people evicted from District Six by the apartheid regime. She said her son-in-law would provide temporary shelter for her and her husband.

Their daughter-in-law, Doulla Philander, did not know where she and her husband would spend the night. “My husband and I might have to sleep outside, under the stars,” she said. Their two daughters would spend the night at their grandmother’s house, she said.

Dr Mohamed said the next phase of the court order was to find them accommodation. “After the estate is sold the proceeds will be distributed to them, equitably,” he said.

His statement received an angry response from Gairo Essop who said they wanted their homes and not money.

- Cape Times

Cup clean-up 'like apartheid removals'

Opposition parties have criticised the relocation of informal traders from the Grand Parade and the station for the World Cup, comparing the move to the forced removal of black people from District Six under apartheid.

About 330 traders have been relocated by the City of Cape Town from the Grand Parade to Lower Plein Street, Corporation Street, The Castle and behind the Old Drill Hall for the duration of the soccer tournament.

The Grand Parade will be a Fifa Fan Fest during the World Cup and the station deck was being upgraded.

This week, politicians in the provincial legislature criticised the relocation, saying it's denying traders a business opportunity.

The ANC's Lynne Brown called on the legislature to find a solution to the problem, while accusing the DA of effectively participating in cleaning up of trading areas.

Brown said while the sector was "not quantifiable", informal trading was the backbone of the city and had been an economic sector that was a driver of the province's economy.

But Transport and Public Works MEC Robin Carlisle said the city had no choice but to remove the traders because of an agreement signed by the national government and Fifa.

He said the government had been "taken to the cleaners" by Fifa.

- Cape Argus

The trouble with Cape Town

South Africa's changing cities give us clues about what groups need (and what they don't) to have a happy existence.

Counter Currents: Experiments in Sustainability in the Cape Town Region

The opening line of Counter Currents would not be out of place in a dystopian sci-fi book. "Cape Town is heading for disaster," writes editor Edgar Pieterse. The essays in the book bear this out to varying degrees, although in many cases leavened by a modicum of hope.

It's doing the nuanced contributions to this book a necessary disservice, but to summarise crudely: the majority of Cape Town's residents are extremely poor, its infrastructure is falling apart, our politicians are useless and our government departments are, at worse, populated by a bunch of self-serving individuals seeking only personal or party-political gain or, at best, by people of good will hamstrung by their urge to achieve consensus decisions instead of having the balls to make the hard choices.

Yes, this is a gross over-simplification. But, on the other hand, when you read Lucien le Grange and Nisa Mammom's essay on the problems of repatriating District Six, perhaps it's not gross enough. Since 1994, only 24 claimant families have been resettled in District Six. A vast swathe of land in Cape Town lies unused, a cultural and economic vacuum that should be a constant reminder for all of us of the ineptitude that bedevils the city.

What exactly is the master plan here? Wait until everyone dies and then turn the place into a golf course? I mean, how hard can it be? Well, very hard, according to the essay. But still, at this rate, we might as well sell the District Six Theme Park concession to Disney and employ dispossessed peoples as Jolly Dancing Natives. At least then the lonely 24 huddling in their windswept houses will have something to do besides counting vagrants trudging disconsolately past their doors.

The essayists propose several solutions to the problem, but the difficulties seem insurmountable. For example, claimants get a R55 706 subsidy per household to build a new house, a number apparently calculated by taking the average amount a City Bowl Capetonian spends on cappuccinos a month and then dividing that by the cost of parking at the Waterfront.

There are many obstacles to progress in building a sustainable Cape Town, but the overriding one appears to be people. For every reasonable suggestion, there's someone who, through incompetence or venality, stymies the effort. In that sense, Counter Currents is its own best analogy. The book appears to have been copy-edited by a gerbil with ADD and an eyepatch. I assume this is either because some poor copy editor was paid a pittance or because deadlines started squeezing. Or perhaps it's a question of a skills shortage.

It's damnably irritating having a glaring error every few pages, but we shouldn't let this stop us reading this book. There are several worthy highlights. David Schmidt's The Dynamic of Leadership in Cape Town is fascinating, providing precious insight into the fraught process of establishing a nonracial system of local government after 1994. Schmidt's insider tales of the shenanigans of the buffoon Peter Marais, and of the devolution of Nomaindia Mfeketo from sturdy politician to ineffectual mayor, are required reading for any Capetonian struggling to understand "a political practice as poisonous and untrusting as that of Cape Town in recent years".

Ashraf Jamal's essay on artist Jane Alexander is slightly out of place, but beautifully written. It's included in the book because, we are told, "her art is neither a reflection nor obvious representation of the strengths and ills of urban living, but seems lodged indigestibly in the very gut of our unconscious realms where, thrusting forth its horned and gnawing probes, it can -- potentially -- assist us in understanding the strangeness of what we deem the real".

Initially, I guffawed at the awkward juxtaposition of this precise intellectualism with, for example, an essay such as Crane et al's Towards Urban Infrastructure Sustainability. Then I read Mark Swilling's excellent chapter, Dealing with Sustainability, populated by ogres and monsters. He asks the trenchant question: "What changes the city?" The short answer is -- and I'm paraphrasing heavily here -- evil, scum-sucking real estate developers, bankers and lickspittle architects. It's a compelling story, one of many that make Counter Currents a salutary read for South Africans interested in where our cities are headed.

- M&G