Civil society accuses CoCT of ‘siding with investors over the poor’ in land auction

On Tuesday, activists, community organisations and residents gathered outside the Good Hope Centre to protest against the City’s upcoming land auctions. The City of Cape Town is pressing ahead with plans toauction offmore public land, despite there being more than 400,000 people on Cape Town’s housing waiting list, with civil society groups saying this will deepen the crisis and push the poor and working class further out of the city. The site itself is among the properties the City intends to sell, arguing that the process will “unlock idle municipal land so that the private sector can invest, build, and create thousands of jobs”.

But protesters reject the notion that any land in Cape Town is “idle” while thousands live in informal settlements, backyard shacks or on the streets after evictions and rising rental costs. “We don’t want the auction of this land that the City is going to do. We want the land to be utilised.

And the problem is that the City doesn’t consult with community, the City just does whatever they want to do,” said Kashiefa Aschmat, Chairperson of Housing Assembly. According to Housing Assembly, the scale of the housing backlog reflects the desperation of families seeking safe, affordable homes large enough to accommodate them. “There are properties being auctioned by the City, but in our communities there are people being evicted at the same time because we are told that they don’t have any houses or land available for houses.

[paywall]

So we feel that the City is lying and that there is an agenda of power and control,” Aschmat said. “We have seen Bromwell, we have seen Cecil Street in Woodstock. Evicted communities are still waiting for permanent housing, but the City claims that there are no alternatives.

It feels like the City does not want poor people living in the city.” Aschmat added: “We know that the buyers are investors who are not from the country. The City will still be in control through these sales.” Community activist Jeffrey Van Wyk, who has previously spoken out about the backlog affecting elderly backyard dwellers and residents in the Cape Flats and Ravensmead, said many groups oppose the auctions because of their lived experiences of homelessness and hardship. He claimed there had been no meaningful consultation before the DA-led City decided to auction the land.

“There was no consultation on the different ways that the available land can be used before auctioning. We also get the sense that there is no respect for the sacred land,” he said.

[/paywall]