Sitting in the shade close to his 4×4, the portly ”land invader” overseeing two workers constructing makeshift shacks in the Mkondeni area near Pietermaritzburg was the antithesis of the dispossessed. No rags, no wheelbarrow containing all his belongings and definitely no hungry glint in his eye.
Ditto the hundreds of other middleÂ-class people who have converged on private property around Shortt’s Rift and Ashburton in the Mkondeni region in their 4x4s and Volvos since the beginning of July to stake their claim to ”free land”.
The land grab started three weeks ago and includes public servants, municipal workers and government employees. They have been demarcating plots and erecting shacks under the impression that it had been earmarked for a housing development. They appear to believe that when this happens they will have houses — probably to rent out.
But the landowners have hit back. Many obtained court interdicts against the invaders and most of the recently mushroomed shacks had been destroyed when the Mail & Guardian visited the area on Tuesday.
Misunderstandings and misread news stories about a nearby squatter community might have fuelled the stampede.
Advocate Zandile Mbatha, from Lawyers for Human Rights, acted on behalf of 2 500 residents from a neighbouring informal settlement who face eviction. The LHR recently won a court order compelling the Msunduzi Municipality to provide them with alternative accommodation and this might have been misinterpreted as a general licence to move in.
The latest land grab might have been fuelled by the leaked minutes of a council meeting called to discuss the matter.
Said Mbatha: ”We were not representing the community in terms of their rights to the land. We used the precedent set by the recent Modder-klip case, where it was proved that the right of ownership was subordinate to the right to housing. The judge compelled the Msunduzi Municipality to furnish the court with a report on how it planned to provide alternative accommodation for the community.”
At a subsequent council meeting she said the mayor, Zanele Hlatshwayo, had discussed the idea of buying the land for low-cost housing development. ”Word could have got out and people started land-grabbing with the intention of securing their homes in the future development, believing that they could not be evicted from the area.” Mbatha said some of her poor clients had lived there for more than 20 years.
Skumbuso Mpanza, spokesperson for the mayor’s office, confirmed that the purchase of land for the informal settlement had been discussed. ”We suspect that people could be jumping on the bandwagon because they know the council is genuine about addressing the plight of these poor people.”
William Slater-Klinghorn, director of the Forsyte Props company which owns a section of the land, said this would explain the proliferation of public servants during the land grabs. ”Many were not squatters or destitute people; people were arriving in fancy vehicles and provincial government cars, others from the Eastern Cape and Gauteng. It seemed very well orchestrated.”
Speaking to the M&G on condition of anonymity, one land-grabber said she had been alerted to the ”free land” after news reports on the SABC and in the local media. ”I have a house, but I wanted to get my dream house.”
Pietermaritzburg was declared KwaZulu-Natal’s sole capital in 2005, bringing an influx of public servants from Ulundi. This put strain on the middle-income real estate market.
Cathy Pretorius, vice-chairperson of Pietermaritzburg’s’s Institute for Estate Agents, said there was a ”great possibility” that the middle-class land grab could have been spurred by the lack of mid-level residential property in the city or close to transport routes and places of work.
”Pietermaritzburg has a problem with availability of both residential and office spaces since the capital was moved,” Mpanza said. ”A lot of people are commuting or living in B&Bs because they can’t buy land or houses here.”
Since last year the Msunduzi municipality has taken most municipal land off the market after realising that its supply chain management policy contravenes the Municipal Finance Management Act. Municipalities across the country are grappling with this issue.
Blackie Zwart, the council’s manager for real estate and evaluations, said: ”The Act, which is badly written, refers all disposal and transfer of fixed assets to the supply chain management policy. But that can’t really be done because the policy doesn’t deal with fixed assets, only movable assets and the procuring of goods and services which the municipality needs.”
Zwart said a draft land disposal policy document setting out rules and procedures for the disposal and letting of council property had been finalised and would be presented to council next month. He believed the document could become a blueprint for municipalities countrywide.
Mpanza said since the land invasions had occurred on private land, the dispute was between the invaders and landowners. At a meeting of interested parties this week, the informal settlement had been ”reassured” that the municipality was setting up alternative accommodation for them. However, the council had warned that ”the act of land invasion would not be tolerated”. — Additional reporting by Rogan Ward