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It was extremely
important that these consolidations were registered as it facilitated
the registration of new layout plans and the opening of the relevant township
registers. Unless this process had been completed, transfers of
the new erven to the prospective purchasers could not be effected.
Township Establishment
A very important aspect in the development
of Cato Manor is the fact that much of the land in the project area has
been formally designated as land for less formal settlement in terms of
the Less Formal Township Establishement Act No 113/1991.
The CMDA was instrumental in having an additional two areas designated
during 1997, namely the Cato Crest precinct and Lot 1876 in Chesterville
Extension and is presently attending to yet another application for Jamaica,
also in Chesterville Extension. The fact that these areas have been
so designated facilitates far quicker re-planning as all provincial planning
legislation is superseded by this act.
Sales
The sale of sites with top structures
totalled 1700 during 1997 and 1998. Transfer to the new owners has
been accomplished for 25% of these sales.
Allocations
The Cato Manor Allocations Committee
was established duirng 1997 and comprises representatives of the Department
of Local Government and Housing, The South Central Local Council and the
CMDA. The committee's primary function is to approve the alienation
of sites owned by the Provincial Housing Development Board in the project
area. At the close of 1998 the committee had met on 12 occasions
and had approved the sale of a variety of sites including a pump station
site in Cato Crest, a site for teachers' empowerment project, the Bellair
Road Clinic site, an administrative support centre, a site for the Salvation
Army (a land exchange) and a school site. The number of cases to
be submitted to this committee is expected to increase substantially in
the months ahead.
Land Claims
An historic settlement was reached in
the land claims dispute between over 400 former residents of Cato Manor,
who were dispossessed of their land in terms of apartheid legislation,
and the local councils responsible for develoing the area. The Cato
Manor Land Claims Settlement Agreement, which was signed in May 1997,
brought to an end a protracted court case and months of negotiations between
the land claimants on the one hand and the local government and CMDA on
the other. Parties to the Agreement, which was made an order of
the Land Claims Court, include the Regional Land Claims Commission (RLCC),
the Department of Land Affairs (DLA), the North Central, South Central
and Inner West Local Councils and 441 claimants.
The Agreement is
the first of its kind in the country and has allowed the Cato Manor project
to proceed whilst claims are being resolved. Restitution options
for claimants have been established and include financial compensation,
alternative land in Cato Manor and, where feasible, restoration of the
original land holding. A complex process to settle the claims was
established but can be summarised very simply as follows:
The CMDA is responsible
for producing a "feasibility report" for every property which
has been claimed. Copies of these reports are submitted to the
RLCC and to the claimants and/or their attorneys. A "feasibility
report" contains details as to land ownership, exisitng development,
structure plan implications, affected projects in the work programme,
any other relevant information and concludes whether it is feasible
or not to restore the property. In each case where it concludes
that it is not feasible to restore, the Regional Land Claims Commissioner
is obliged to initiate a mediation process. Should the mediation
process not result in agreement being reached between the parties, the
matter proceeds to arbitration for a final decision.
The majority
of the claimants, the CMDA, the RLCC and the DLA have been working hard
an continuously to make the settlement agreement work. Although
slower than hoped, substantial progress has been achieved during 1998
as reflected by the statistics in the table below:
During 1998 a
group of claimants, subsequent to the signing of the Settlement Agreement,
elected to bring an application before the Land Claims Court for
an interdict to stop development on certain areas of the project.
The application was dismissed with costs by the Court.
Land Claims
A series of challenges around land issues
were successfully dealt with between 1993 and 1997 including substantial
achievements in combating land invasions and resolving matters associated
with the restoration of land rights. In 1994 a Commission on Restitution
of Land Rights and a Land Claims Court were established to investigate
and address the claims of people dispossessed of land under apartheid.
A total of 5 722 land claims were received by the Commission in respect
of properties in Cato Manor. Due to the time that would have been needed
to validate and settle this volume of claims, a strategy aimed at addressing
legitimate claims, whilst allowing the development to proceed, had to
be developed. Accordingly, the CMDA placed an application before the Land
Claims Court in terms of Section 34 of the Restitution of Land Rights
Act No. 22 of 1994, requesting, in the interests of the holistic and sustainable
development of Cato Manor, that land not be restored to individual claimants
and that other forms of redress such as alternative land or financial
compensation be used. Over 400 former residents opposed the Application.
Following a protracted court case and months of negotiations, the historic
Land Claims Settlement Agreement, the first of its kind in South Africa,
was signed in May 1997, enabling the development to proceed whilst claims
were being resolved. Restitution options for claimants included financial
compensation, alternative land in Cato Manor and, where feasible, restoration
of the original land holding.
The position at the end of 2002 in respect
of Cato Manor land claims which have been processed in terms of the Section
34 Settlement Agreement is as follows:
• 302 claims were settled on the basis
of ‘financial compensation’.
• 28 claims were settled on the basis that the claimants would be offered
alternative land.
• 22 claims were settled on the basis that the properties concerned are
‘restorable’.
• 70 claims included properties which are situated outside the Section
34 boundary and were accordingly not processed any further in terms of
the Agreement.
• Three claims were rejected by the Regional Land Claims Commission.
• Seven claims were withdrawn by the claimants.
• 13 claims which proceeded to Arbitration were found to be ‘not feasible
to restore’ by the Arbitration Panel.
Relocattions
The relocation of informal households
located in the way of key infrastructural projects began in earnest in
the latter part of 1996. The rapid and successful implementation
of this exercise was essential to ensure that the relevant projects could
proceed and that the allocated funding would be spent within the time
constraints set in the respective business plans.
The CMDA has already
successfully created housing opportunities for more than 200 families
who have had to move out of the way of bulk services implementation.
A brief description of the key steps in the relocation process is as follows:
-
Identification
of projects necessitating relocations
-
Quantification
of the relocations
-
Informing the
community of the impending relocation and determining to which housing
project the families will be relocated
-
Identifying
occupants and determining whether they qualify for the Provincial
Housing Development Board (PHDB) subsidy
-
Preparing the
necessary documents for submission to the PHDB, Metro Water and Durban
Electricity
-
Proceeding
with the actual relocation and ensuring that the structures which
the families are vacating are dismantled
Some of the larger
projects where relocations have successfully been implemented include
the following:
-
Bellair Stream
Protection
-
Bellair Road
Upgrade
-
Booth Road
West
-
Cato Crest
Collector Roads - Phases 1 & 2
-
Bellair Urban
Park
-
Mahlati Wiggins
Connection
-
Durban
Road Upgrade
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