Helderberg
Year 16 • Tuesday 3 July 2012 | Tel. 021 853 0211
Floodline families stand fast
Work on the temporary relocation area, erf ST 1154-31, has come to a standstill. The 52 families to be moved there are said to be unhappy that the City of Cape Town will only be giving them standard emergency kits with which to rebuild.
NICOLE MCCAIN Almost two months after Sir Lowry’s Pass exploded into riot on 9 May over a lack of housing, it is still not clear whether or not families that were worst affected by flooding will move. The City of Cape Town and Mayor Patricia de Lille assured the community that the 52 families living below the floodline in the informal settlement of Rasta Camp would be moved to higher land by the end of June. Although the clearing of the land for the so-called temporary relocation area (TRA) – erf ST 1154-31 –
started in mid-May, no residents have yet been moved there. Councillor Ernest Sonnenberg, the City of Cape Town’s mayoral committee member for human settlements, says plans have come to a halt, and no temporary structures will be built. “The Human Settlements Directorate is willing and has already planned to relocate the identified 52 worst-affected families from Rasta Camp to the site, but at present they have indicated that they do not want to relocate.” According to Anwar Louw, chairperson of the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco), residents are reluctant to move be-
cause the city will not supply them with building material. Dolphina Steenkamp, chairperson of the Sir Lowry’s Pass Development Committee, says people are unwilling to break down their homes if they are not going to receive material to build new ones. “Some of those homes have been standing for 20 years. One can just imagine that people will not be able to rebuild with the same material once it has been broken down. People would be willing to move if they were getting building material.” Sonnenberg says the city offered the families the standard emergency kits for rebuilding, “but they have indicated a preference that
enough material be provided for them to completely rebuild their existing structures”. “This is why the families have been unwilling to relocate.” He says the City is unable to do this given the temporary nature of the homes, and the City’s future plans for a low-cost housing project. The TRA land is one of two erven earmarked for the planned low-cost housing project, and will accommodate 72 houses. De Lille said 500 low-cost houses would be built on erf ST 1154-31 and erf 911 in Rasta Camp. In the meantime, the City has begun the public participation process for the move to erf ST 1154-31.
The area, which is just over 1 100 m², is meant to house 174 temporary units with a size of 8 m². However, residents living near the site say they were not consulted about this, and that clearing of the land started before any public participation process had begun. Bruce Oom, spokesperson for Western Cape Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, estimates it will take another eight weeks before erf 911 in Rasta Camp is signed over to the city. “A submission has been prepared and, assuming the minister agrees with the submission, the process will continue – and may still take another eight weeks.”
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