The Constitutional Court reserved judgment last week in a case seen as having implications for how the City allocates emergency housing.
On Tuesday February 27, housing activists Ndifuna Ukwazi and Abahlali baseMjondolo – a socialist shack dwellers’ movement – made submissions questioning the City’s housing policy, on behalf of the applicants, families who had been evicted from four adjoining cottages in Bromwell Street, Woodstock, and were to be relocated to emergency housing in informal settlements far from the City.
The Bromwell Street battle has dragged on for eight years.
The applicants approached the Constitutional Court to appeal a decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal, in February last year, which permitted the City to relocate them to informal settlements such as Wolwerivier.
The families initially won a challenge in the Western Cape High Court, which found the City’s housing programme and conduct to be unconstitutional, but the City appealed the ruling..
The key issue before the Constitutional Court was the constitutionality of the City’s housing policy not to provide temporary emergency accommodation in the inner city close to residents’ places of work and schooling.
The City had made offers of temporary emergency housing in Wolwerivier, Maitland and Kampies, all of which had been rejected by the Bromwell Street residents.
Disha Govender, head of the Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre, said: “It was a long but important day as the Constitutional Court heard the parties’ arguments, and we are leaving here hopeful that our clients’ rights will be vindicated.”
She added: “This moment offers us a chance to urge the City to reshape its housing policies, practices and implementation in accordance with our collective vision for a fair and inclusive city. We argued that the rights of Bromwell families were violated; they were not able to access adequate housing due to the City’s poor planning and policies, which exacerbate apartheid spatial planning and injustice.”
Charnell Commando, the lead applicant, said evictions broke up families and communities.
“The anxiety, the stress, not knowing where you are going next, being thrown on the outskirts where you can’t come to your job or where the children can’t come to school the whole week. It’s not just about the case, it’s what actually is happening with the people in the case. It’s real people’s lives being touched by the case,” she said.
In a statement, the City said it had made representations to the Constitutional Court, and it outlined the background to the case, noting that the High Court had granted an eviction order to a private owner of a Bromwell Street property in 2017.
“The occupants had demanded that the state provide temporary emergency housing in the specific areas of Salt River, Woodstock or the CBD, rejecting all offers of temporary emergency housing made by the City of Cape Town at the time. The implication of this demand is that the state (in this case, the City) would have to provide emergency housing for any number of private evictions in the specific area of the eviction, and at the public’s cost. This is neither reasonable nor feasible,” the statement read.
The City said various municipal-owned properties in central Cape Town – with a yield of over 3 500 units – had already been released to social housing developers, including Pine Road, Dillon Lane and Pickwick Road in Woodstock; Salt River Market; and the now-tenanted Maitland Mews development. Several more properties are in the short to medium-term land-release pipeline, including New Market Street, Woodstock Hospital and Earl Street, all in Woodstock, as well as Fruit & Veg in the CBD.
Mayoral committee member for human settlements Carl Pophaim said: “In a February 2023 ruling, the SCA agreed with the City’s approach, stating that ‘the City was entitled to adapt its housing programme to address the effects of gentrification, among other challenges. It did so by identifying Woodstock, Salt River and the surrounding areas to develop affordable social housing. It is not clear what could be objectionable about the City seeking to build affordable houses in the inner city as part of addressing the legacy of apartheid spatial planning’.”
Once the Constitutional Court had ruled, the City said it would be ready to determine the number of occupants remaining at Bromwell Street, including their socio-economic conditions, before further engagements on alternative emergency accommodation, taking into account the available options.
In a statement, the housing activist group, Reclaim The City, said: “The case of the Bromwell Street families centres on the fight against eviction and the struggle for adequate emergency housing in Cape Town. The families are not just fighting for their own homes; they are fighting for the soul of our city. They represent the countless individuals and communities who have been marginalised and cast aside in the name of progress and development. Their resistance is a beacon of hope for all of us who have faced the harsh reality of eviction and the threat of homelessness.”
