The City of Cape Town has applied to the Western Cape High Court for the eviction of eight families who moved into a new housing development in Belhar.
The City of Cape Town is seeking to evict the eight families from the Pentech housing development in Belhar in terms of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act of 1998.the respondents occupied the houses unlawfully, taking the places of people to whom the houses had been allocated and who have been on the housing list much longer;they have not proved that they can’t afford to rent elsewhere, so the City should not have to provide alternative accommodation.
The City denies this and says in any case the manager did not have the authority to offer them the houses. Anyway, the City says, the respondents were served with a notice to vacate in January 2022, rendering their occupation of the houses unlawful. The City says accommodation was found for the eight families originally displaced from the housing list. But as long as the respondents stayed in the houses, ‘there will always … be eight lawful beneficiaries who are being denied access to the homes that ought to be lawfully allocated to them and their families’. There is no merit, the City says, in the assertion that the continued occupation ‘does not harm anyone’.