The advent of democracy saw Franschhoek, the model Afrikaner village of apartheid mythology, ill prepared to deal with transformation. Under apartheid the dream of a “pure” white town had seen the forced removal of 40 coloured families who had owned homes there, and the creation of a separate coloured municipality, with a buffer zone of farms in between. Africans were totally excluded from the area, in terms of the Coloured Labour Preference policy.
As apartheid ground to its end, a housing backlog grew in the coloured area and there was a huge influx of Africans from the former Bantustans seeking work. At the same time the tourist boom and soaring property prices lead to the subdivision of farms as investors wished to buy into the Franschhoek lifestyle, without actually farming
Franschhoek’s appeal as an international tourist destination grew and many farmers who hoped to circumvent the Extension of Security of Tenure Act evicted labourers and converted their cottages into bed-and-breakfast establishments. The job losses resulted in a huge disruption to the local economy, as it shifted from its traditional base of labour-intensive farming to a tourism and service-based economy, from which coloured and African people were largely excluded.
Families affected by evictions in the 1970s lodged land claims, the demand for low-cost housing grew and squatter settlements mushroomed. The town became increasingly polarised along race and class lines, and there were numerous clashes and protest marches against the municipality.
As tensions rose, attention turned to the municipal commonage, which had fallen into disuse after World War II. The municipality came under pressure from the black communities to use this land for low-cost housing, and from the white community to sell it for an elite development.
Enter Willem Steenkamp, an unlikely hero, who confounded the preconceptions of both sides. A white Afrikaner who served as a diplomat in both the old and new regimes, he was chair of both the Afrikaans business chamber and the local branch of the African National Congress. “We realised we could not continue like this. We needed cooperation instead of conflict,” he explains.
Back in 1996, Wilfred Moses was chairperson of the Franschhoek Development Forum, which was formed to deal with housing issues. “At that time we felt that developments in the area were happening too fast and that the local community were not benefiting”. Moses and Steenkamp worked to get a dialogue going among the numerous stakeholders.
The result was a social accord signed in 1998 between members of the community and the private and public sector, which resolved to use the commonage land in a way that would provide social upliftment as well as conserving the biodiversity of the area, and also ensure long-term sustainability by giving previously disadvantaged people access to tourism and entrepreneurial opportunities. A development plan was drawn up after an extensive process of workshops with the community, and the Franschhoek Empowerment and Development Initiative was born. “For the first time the haves and the have-nots united to work for a common goal,” explains Moses.
The topography of the commonage made it too expensive to build low-cost housing there, so an innovative decision was reached. The commonage land would be developed in a way which would allow cross-subsidisation of a low-cost housing project in Mooiwaters, in a less scenic part of the valley. To date 770 houses have been built out of a total of 1 000 planned, with members of the Mooiwaters project given freehold title to their properties. “We wanted to create a community of landowners, not tenants,” explains Steenkamp.
The Mooiwaters development has several unique features, including a social compact in terms of which individuals acting against the interests of the community, such as gangsters and drug lords, can be taken to court and expelled in a legal process. To discourage more squatters from moving in to take over vacated shacks, all residents were obliged to dismantle their shacks and sell their building materials to the council on receipt of title deeds to their houses.
The land is now being developed based on three major components, the first being an 80ha wine and olive estate, which is to be run as a working farm. Nineteen “werfs” of one acre each, on which the owners will build their own “manor houses”, were sold to wealthy investors for R2,4-million. The farm is owned 50% by a workers trust and will be fully funded by the Franschhoek Development Company — a commercial entity formed to purchase and develop the land — until the first wine is harvested in 2009.
The workers’ trust, the Franschhoek Empowerment and Conservation Trust and a private sector management company will share all proceeds. And in an ironic twist, the 19 manor houses will each receive one case of wine per month in lieu of rent — a sort of dop system in reverse.
In conjunction with the Working for Water project, the area has been cleared of alien invasive species — leading to the discovery of an endangered protea species (seruria gracilis) long thought to be extinct in the area. A fynbos propagation nursery has been established, drawing on the expertise of the staff of the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, who have trained workers to nurture and conserve these unique floral species. The estate borders the Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve and will be an entry point to the proposed Boland Biosphere Reserve.
Damon Malan (35) grew up on a neighbouring farm, where his parents were labourers. He now works on the nursery and landscaping project on the estate and will undergo further training at Kirstenbosch. “Fifty years ago if you said that workers like us would own a wine farm in Franschhoek, people would have thought you were mad,” says Malan. “Before this project, all I knew about wine was how to drink it. Now our people will be trained to make wine themselves.” Malan’s plans include working his way up into management of the farm and he sees his destiny as tied to this land: “I am going to be a part of all this. We have worked so hard to get this far — we cannot fail. I intend to grow old on this farm.”
While preference is given to workers from the surrounding area, migrants from other parts of the country now form an integral part of the community. Fifty-seven-year-old Zipathi Sidiya is a relative newcomer to these parts, having left his home in Willowvale after the dissolution of the former Transkei to look for work in the more prosperous winelands. He found a job on a flower farm and moved into the nearby squatter camp, which was plagued by crime, intolerable heat in summer and runaway shack fires in winter. His experience with plants landed him a job at the nursery on the new estate and he was one of the first recipients of a house in Mooiwater. “I have a house with taps, electricity and a stove. My children can come and visit me now that I have a good place to live.”
The second element of the Fransche Hoek Estate development is a culture and eco-tourism node that is being developed down the valley, which will create job opportunities as well as space for local entrepreneurs to run their own businesses. “This is a model of true empowerment, in which our people are not just sitting and looking on but actually participating,” says Moses.
The third element is a medium-cost housing development, of 60 houses, on 2ha of land abutting the farm. This will also provide affordable housing for community members such as police officers and teachers who don’t qualify for low-cost housing but can’t afford to buy elsewhere amid the property boom, which has seen even modest houses going for astronomical figures.
The development has also made provision for the 40 families who lodged land claims. Ten plots of land on the banks of the La Cotte stream will be sold for the construction of a high-end housing development, and the profits will be divided between these families.
While the project has been years in the making, its fruits are sweet. “People thought we were crazy because of the magnitude of the project,” laughs Moses. “It has opened up their thinking about the possibility of achieving the impossible. People now understand that they really can become shareholders in a farm, develop businesses and improve their living conditions. This has given them back their pride and a sense of independence.”
What is commonage?
The term municipal commonage is given to land, owned by a municipality or local authority, that was usually acquired through state grants or from the church. It differs from other municipally owned land in that residents have acquired grazing rights on the land, or the land was granted expressly to benefit needy local inhabitants. Municipal commonage is not the same as communally owned land held in trust by the state and usually occupied and administered by tribal authorities.
Source: Dept of Land Affairs