The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality and Airport Valley residents will face off in court next week as the metro wants to evict them to make way for a multimillion-rand housing project.
In the Gqeberha high court on Thursday, the municipality was ordered to distribute a copy of a pending eviction application to as many people as possible, including reading it out with loud hailers.
The matter will be heard on December 5.
The municipality applied for the order in terms of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act.
The city said two parcels of its land were being unlawfully occupied — Airport Valley and a serviced site identified as 1948, located off Victoria Drive, past the Walmer township cemetery.
“For many [years] Airport Valley has been unlawfully occupied by literally hundreds of households and is an informal settlement, which has virtually no services," reads the city's application.
“It is unknown exactly how many shacks have been constructed in the areas, or how many people live there.”
A group of residents not on the municipality’s housing beneficiary list have refused to be relocated to an area called Solomon, also known as Wonderful, situated 5km from Airport Valley, saying the area does not have services.
There have been tensions between residents — those on the housing list and others who are not — with claims of sabotage and intimidation being bandied about.
The municipality said Airport Valley had been earmarked for the construction of RDP houses with a budget of R58m, of which R10m was budgeted for the installation of services.
In court papers, the city said earthworks, installation of services and roads were meant to have started in August but due to the group refusing to be moved, this did not happen.
“In addition to the people identified as beneficiaries, a number ... of unlawful occupiers who have not been allocated RDP houses, have no incentive to move.
“Furthermore, when a beneficiary agrees to move to Walmer 1948 (there having limited success in this regard) someone moves into the space vacated.
“This has led to the unfortunate result that beneficiaries are now refusing to move to Walmer 1948 because, as they perceive it, they are giving up their shacks to live in a temporary structure based on a promise that they will be rehoused in an RDP house at some future date.
“At the same time, and for obvious reasons the unlawful occupiers, who are not beneficiaries, have no incentive to move.”
In motivating for the application to be granted, the city said as was the case with all budgeted allocations, if funds were not spent, they were forfeited and in the next year, the allocation was reduced accordingly.
The city said because 1948 was largely unoccupied, people had started illegal occupying the temporary housing units and those individuals also needed to be evicted to make way for beneficiaries.
In the notice of motion in the eviction application, the city also wanted an order interdicting people from intimidating and harassing its employees or anyone appointed by contractors.
One group of Airport Valley residents has made damning allegations against the Umzi WaseGqeberha Housing Development Association, contracted to build 500 RDP units where they now live.
The association has been accused of using intimidatory tactics in the long-standing fight to force residents to relocate, including conducting late-night visits to women-led households and dumping sand on doorsteps.
On Thursday, human settlements political head Thembinkosi Mafana welcomed the outcome.
“It is clear message to all residents that may think we will allow them to disrupt us when we want to do service delivery. We will go through the courts to evict them.”
Later, an excited crowd welcomed mayor Babalwa Lobishe who went to the area to deliver the news about the municipality’s court victory.
She said municipal officials would use loud hailers to spread the news for five days.
“This will allow the project to continue so that people finally get what they have been waiting for,” Lobishe said.
The gathered residents, who sang as the mayor arrived, welcomed the announcement.
Siphokazi Ntantiso said: “Thank you for keeping your promises. We have been fighting for our houses because we did not want to grow old and even die leaving nothing for our children.”
Further down the road, however, another group of residents watched the proceedings from afar.
- This article has been updated as aspects of it were factually incorrect.
- It was incorrectly stated the Nelson Mandela Bay Bay municipality had been given the go-ahead to serve Airport Valley residents with eviction notices. In fact, urgency was granted by the courts to hear the eviction application.
- HeraldLIVE
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