Housing activists say the City’s plan to sell the old Woodstock hospital could lead to the eviction of more than 900 people living there.
Mayoral committee member for human settlements Carl Pophaim says the City plans to dispose of the site to a developer to build a mix of 500 open-market and social housing units, and the plan is due to go out to public comment this month.
Activist groups Ndifuna Ukwazi and Reclaim the City say the City has failed to consult those occupying the building, which they call “Cissie Gool House”, about the plan.
In a statement, Ndifuna Ukwazi said the building had been occupied in 2017 in protest against what it said was a failure by the City and the Province to provide adequate affordable housing in the inner city and surrounds, and, seven years, later there had been little tangible progress in tackling “spatial apartheid”, which would also not be reversed by rushing to evict 900 people from the only well-located housing for poor and working class people in the central city.
“It seems that the City wants to push forward with an eviction at all costs, despite the fact that this would be the biggest inner-city eviction in Cape Town since the height of apartheid,” said the statement.
The City should prove that it indeed cared about poor and working class residents by engaging with the occupiers of the building as people worthy of care and support, the statement said.
Mr Pophaim said the City planned to do just that as part its public participation process.
“The response for the existing occupants will be dependent on the socio-economic profile of the households. The City intends to engage the households on the options available to them to determine the appropriate response for each household,” he said.
In a further statement, Mr Pophaim said the illegal occupation of the site had been the single biggest delay to the housing development.
“I will not tolerate anyone undermining our affordable housing agenda or holding a fair housing allocations system ransom.”
Reclaim the City leader Karen Hendricks said the City had made plans to dispose of the building without meaningful consultation.
“The City is not saying what will happen to the occupiers.”
Reclaim the City had tried to fix up the Woodstock hospital for poor people to live there, she said.
Referring to the 500-unit development, she said many of the 900 living at the hospital site might not benefit from the plan.
“The City does not provide us any alternatives,” she said.
