The City of Johannesburg will next week appeal against a high court decision preventing it from evicting residents of condemned buildings in the inner city, unless it provides suitable alternative accommodation in the surrounding area.
In the controversial judgement, Judge Mahommed Jajbhay found the state had a constitutional obligation to provide for the housing needs of its most indigent citizens. ”The obligation is to provide access to adequate housing to those unable to support themselves and their dependants,” he said.
The ruling was seen as a victory for the residents who live in some of the city’s worst buildings, which have no running water or electricity, but who are too poor to afford better facilities.
But the city saw the judgement as a great obstacle to regeneration of the inner city, which has become an area of focus in the lead-up to the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
Projects such as the Better Buildings Programme (BBP), which allows redevelopers to take over inner-city buildings that have run up huge utility bills, in exchange for a rates rebate, have stagnated since the ruling.
City officials say this is because of the difficulty and cost involved in finding inner-city accommodation for the estimated 67 000 impoverished people who inhabit the 235 ”bad buildings” on the city’s list.
A city official involved in regeneration says that the intention is not necessarily to remove all residents from these buildings, as it is possible for regeneration to take place while the residents stay on. ”But in the worst-case scenario, we need the choice to evict,” he says.
Stuart Wilson, of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, has been providing legal assistance to the affected residents. ”Make no mistake … if [the city] wins the appeal, these guys are out,” he says.