The fate of 300 of Johannesburg’s poorest residents hung in the balance on Tuesday as the City of Johannesburg appeals a court ruling preventing it from evicting them from some of the inner-city’s worst buildings.
The Bloemfontein Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) heard argument in the city’s appeal after the Johannesburg High Court last year dismissed its application for eviction orders.
High court Judge Mahommed Jajbhay found the state had a constitutional obligation to provide for the housing needs of its most indigent citizens, and ruled that it would first have to provide alternative city-centre accommodation for the people it intended evicting.
The city wants to evict residents from six properties it has deemed dangerous and unhygienic under the National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act (NBRA). This Act enables the city to prevent people under its jurisdiction from living in such conditions.
These properties include residential houses in Joel Street in Berea, the San Jose high-rise building, and a double-storey building also in Berea, according to the high court judgement.
The city has earmarked these structures for redevelopment. The San Jose building is set to be renovated under the Better Buildings Programme (BBP), which allows redevelopers to take charge of inner-city buildings that have run up huge utility bills, in exchange for a rates rebate.
Projects like the BBP have stagnated since the initial court ruling — including the city’s intended work in San Jose. One city official, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the Mail & Guardian Online earlier this year this was partly because the council lacked the resources to provide alternate accommodation for evicted residents in the city centre.
In the high court, the city submitted that it was entitled to evict the residents under provisions of the Act. It also contended that the evictions would promote public health in the area and reverse the inner-city decay it was trying to stop with its inner-city regeneration strategy.
The occupiers, however, did not agree that the hazards in the buildings were as great as the city contended. They also argued that their right to adequate housing under the Constitution was violated.
Stuart Wilson, of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals) at the University of the Witwatersrand, has been helping inner-city residents resist summary eviction. He told the M&G Online earlier this month that “it’s not just a case of no housing being provided … people are being taken out of housing they already occupy”.
“[The city is] pushing the poor out,” he said.
On Tuesday, the City of Johannesburg’s legal counsel, Fanie du Plessis, told the five judges of the SCA that the municipality had a responsibility to remove residents from unsafe environments. “They must promote a safe environment; the Constitution demands that — [even if] it could be socially stressful and potentially antagonistic.”
He added that this should be done as humanely as possible.
However, according to Wilson, the city “focus[es] on redevelopment first and on what happens to the poor after”.
“The poor are thrown from pillar to post … in a desperate quest to survive, they are shipped out to the urban periphery,” he told the M&G Online earlier this month.
Just before the court adjourned for lunch, legal counsel for the occupants Paul Kennedy told the judges that the residents would be “put out” of the buildings into a more insecure situation, thus violating their constitutional rights.
He also submitted that the city must provide alternative accommodation in the inner-city area.
The occupants are still staying in the buildings in terms of the interdict by the Johannesburg High Court until the city can provide other housing.
The court reserved judgement.