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Aug 09
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Housing organisations condemn Cape Town’s draft unlawful occupation by-law

By | Eviction news, Evictions, Homeless

Cape Town’s draft Unlawful Occupation By-law is condemned by housing organisations, as this article from The Daily Vox explains.

Reprinted from The Daily Vox, by Ling Shepherd – 2021-08-09

The City of Cape town’s draft Unlawful Occupation by-law closed for public comment on July 31. Several social housing organisations including Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU) have urged the public to reject the bylaw coming into effect. NU has described the bylaw as a shocking assault on poor and working class families. 

What is the By-Law? 

The Unlawful Occupation by-law will provide the city with guidance to manage and prevent unlawful (illegal) occupation of land and buildings in Cape Town. The by-law aims to fill legislative gaps to reduce risks to the city, private landowners, commuters and other stakeholders. This is while adhering to national legislation. The following is covered in the by-law, among others, managing settlements, and responding to and preventing unlawful occupation.

Housing Activist response to the By-Law 

NU issued a statement on July 31 in which civil society and former United Nations (UN) housing experts condemned the by-law.

The former UN experts on the right to adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, Raquel Rolick and Leilani Farha said those occupying the land do so because the city does not provide adequate housing in Cape Town. Unhoused people either sleep on the streets, or build their own housing. Imposing criminal charges onto people in these circumstances is discriminatory; their right to housing is denied and their remedy is punished harshly, the experts said.

NU has condemned the draft bylaw citing that it would criminalise homelessness. Mpho Raboeane, an attorney from NU, wrote that the draft bylaw operates within a system of historical dispossession, inequality and landlessness.

Raboeane further wrote that the city’s approach to the bylaw is of the singular view of property ownership rights. “The bylaw operates within a context of discriminatory legacies, and will reintroduce apartheid era legislation. The draft bylaw also gives a set of wide ranging powers to vaguely defined officials, to remove and demolish informal dwellings without a court order,” said Raboeane.

Raboeane cited section 26(3) of the South African constitution.

“No one may be evicted from their home, or have their home demolished, without an order of court made after considering all the relevant circumstances. No legislation may permit arbitrary evictions.”

City of Cape town responses to unlawful occupations

Malusi Booi, mayoral committee (Mayco) member for human settlements said there has been a spike in unlawful occupations since the start of the March 2020 Covid-19 lockdown.

Evictions and demolitions of people’s land and homes were not allowed under lockdown alert level 5 in 2020, unless an order of the court was granted. The City of Cape Town carried out evictions and shack demolitions during the nationwide lockdown. 

Protests

Residents of Pola Park, an informal settlement, protested against the city of Cape Town from July 9. City officials demolished shacks under a directive from the Human Settlements department resulting in violent clashes between the two groups.

Community leader Sonwabile Ntondini said, the city comes into the community at any time to beat and humiliate them. “We were told they didn’t have the right to come and demolish our homes like this, yet here they are. We didn’t move here because we wanted to, we had no choice after losing our jobs to Covid-19,”said Ntondini.

A group of Vrygrond residents protested on July 14 after a chicken coop was demolished by the City of Cape Town’s Anti-Land Invasion Unit.  Resident and local farmer Michael Khumalo said the coop was being used for a six-week program to train youth how to farm chickens. Khumalo said that the City’s actions were “irresponsible” in the current economic climate.

JP Smith, Mayco member for safety and security said that the protest was a response to the removal of structures erected in violation of a court order. City of Cape Town’s Luthando Tyhalibongo said the city acted within the court order(s) to prevent the further unlawful occupation of this land.

Tyhalibongo said the site is on City-owned land and it is not eligible for housing as it forms part of the False Bay Nature Reserve. “The City has had ongoing consultations with the group over a number of years about the ongoing attempts to illegally occupy this land,” Tyalibongo said.

NU and Reclaim the City will be hosting a public meeting on August 11 to address the little progress the City of Cape Town has made in affordable housing development.

The city of Cape Town could not be reached for comment today on the housing activist statement.

For further information

Simon Dippenaar & Associates, Inc. is a Cape Town law firm of specialist eviction lawyers, now operating in Johannesburg and Durban, helping both landlords and tenants with the eviction process. Contact one of our eviction attorneys on 086 099 5146 or simon@sdlaw.co.za if you need advice on the eviction process or if you are facing unlawful eviction.

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Feb 10
0

David Mabuza’s assurance was misleading

By | COVID 19, Eviction news, Eviction notice, Eviction orders, Expropriation Bill, Farm evictions

Four months after the Deputy President, David Mabuza, assured South Africans that no farmer will be evicted from their farms under the government’s land redistribution programme, Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) officials have been going around giving farmers one-week notices to vacate their farms.

On 22 October 2020, while answering questions in the National Assembly on the government’s planned 700 000 hectare land redistribution programme, Mabuza unambiguously stated that “…those people that are currently occupying those farms (identified for redistribution), I don’t think there is any intention to forcefully remove people at this point in time”.

Mabuza’s assurance was obviously misleading because Mr Ivan Cloete, a successful pig farmer at Colenso farm in the Western Cape was recently served with a 7-day notice to vacate his farm by officials from the DALRRD’s Western Cape provincial offices. The claim by these officials that Mr Cloete does not qualify to continue practising his farming activities at Colenso farm is nothing but naked abuse of power designed to intimidate him into giving up his livelihood. The DA will not stand by and allow the use of dubious eviction orders to harass and victimise a defenceless farmer.

The unfair treatment of Mr Cloete appears to confirm well-founded fears among farmers that 700 000 hectare scheme was now being used as a cover by DALRRD officials to intimidate them into vacating their farms. What makes this state-sanctioned intimidation worse is that the farms of some of the farmers facing this intimidation do not form part of the 700 000 hectare program.

The DA has always been on record arguing that the chaotic approach to land reform will open up avenues for corrupt abuse of the process and disrupt the agricultural sector:

On 10 March 2020, I warned members of the Portfolio Committee that, even without data or information on the monitoring and evaluation of land reform, Departmental officials had been issuing eviction notices haphazardly.

During a committee session on 01 December 2020, I told committee members that farmers in the Western Cape, Gauteng and Mpumalanga who have been on the land for years, had received letters to vacate in the past year.

It is ominous that while the controversial section 25 amendment is being debated in Parliament, farmers are already facing unrelenting pressure to vacate their farms from a Department that has gone rogue. Mabuza and his colleagues in government have an obligation to stop this reckless targeting of farmers before it inflicts irreparable damage to the agricultural sector and the economy.

Reprinted from Politics Web by Annette Steyn

Simon Dippenaar & Associates, Inc. is a Cape Town law firm of specialist eviction lawyers, now operating in Johannesburg and Durban, helping both landlords and tenants with the eviction process. Contact one of our attorneys on 086 099 5146 or sdippenaar@sdlaw.co.za if you need advice on the eviction process or if you are facing unlawful eviction.

Further reading:

Feb 01
0

Protest over ’heartless’ manner in which elderly are being moved from Cape Flats old-age homes

By | COVID 19, Eviction news, Eviction notice, Eviction orders, Eviction videos, Evictions, Protests
In protest over the CPOA’s old-age homes being closed down, a peaceful picket is being held at Nerina Place in Bishop Lavis today. Picture: Vanessa Adrianse
In protest over the CPOA’s old-age homes being closed down, a peaceful picket is being held at Nerina Place in Bishop Lavis today. Picture: Vanessa Adrianse

Cape Town – The Cape Peninsula Organisation for the Aged (CPOA) has been slated over the ’’heartless’’ manner in which it has gone about closing three old-age homes on the Cape Flats due to financial constraints brought on by the Covid-19 lockdown.

In protest over the CPOA’s old-age homes being closed down, a peaceful picket is being held at Nerina Place in Bishop Lavis today, with only 50 people taking part due to Covid-19 lockdown regulations. Nerina Place has about 100 residents.

The protesters comprise residents from Bishop Lavis, Bonteheuwel and Heideveld.

The Nerina Place residents are due to be moved tomorrow and the protesters want it to be suspended with immediate effect. They are also calling for a thorough audit to be done of the CPOA’s books, urging the government to step in immediately.

Picture: Vanessa Adrianse

The CPOA said in a statement last month Nerina Place, Lilyhaven Place in Bonteheuwel and Oakhaven in Heideveld are being shut down. Despite subsidies from the Department of Social Development, the CPOA said it has accumulated losses amounting to R265 million in the past 10 years.

It added that ’’after long and intensive discussions between senior management and the board of directors, CPOA has decided it must close three of its five welfare homes’’.

Vanessa Adrianse, from Heideveldt Mothers For Justice, is incensed by the fact that there has been no consultation with the community regarding the old-age homes being closed down.

Adrianse believes it is tantamount to an “eviction’’. She says the community would have found a solution had they been consulted.

’’All the community organisations in Heideveld have partnered on this protest. Why must the elderly be moved during the heart of the Covid pandemic? The CPOA is heartless and there has been no consultation with the community organisations.

Picture: Vanessa Adrianse

’’Where are they taking these people? We haven’t been informed. If they are closing down because of a lack of funding, the CPOA could have come and spoken to us and we could have made a plan. We could have taken over and applied to government for assistance.

’’The old people are sitting on the stoep of the old-age home at the moment and pleading with us to prevent them from being evicted. Saying the elderly are being ’moved’ is just a nice way of saying they are being evicted, because if someone doesn’t want to go, then you force them.

’’Sometimes their families don’t care about them any more and then after so many years, they become each other’s family.

’’They don’t want to be moved. They are happy here. Some of them are not from Bishop Lavis and they get visits like once every two months. Now they are moving further away.

’’Surely they won’t have place for everyone in one place. If they are all going to one place, why move them from a place where they are comfortable.

“If there is enough funding to take them to another place, then why don’t they use the funds to keep them here.

“Other questions that need answering are about what will happen to the pension and income of the old people here. Why not use that pension to help sustain them?’’

There is also a concern that if they don’t rent out the rooms to people in the area when it closes down, gangsters will vandalise the building and people in the area won’t be safe.

“That is why we are protesting here today, to highlight all these issues,’’ said Adrianse.

Reprinted from IOL

Links added by SD Law

*Simon Dippenaar & Associates, Inc. is a Cape Town law firm of specialist eviction lawyers, and now operating in Johannesburg and Durban, helping both landlords and tenants with the eviction process. Contact one of our attorneys on 086 099 5146 or sdippenaar@sdlaw.co.za if you need advice on the eviction process or want to know the cost of eviction.

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