A bleak future for Coronation Park squatters?
Talks about a R22 million redevelopment plan is under way, but the question is: where will these people go?
Coronation Park has become widely known as a white squatter camp, but news about a R22 million redevelopment plan makes one wonder where the people living there will go once construction commences.
Community members who recently attended a public meeting about the redevelopment were curious about the fate of these people.
Lynn Pannall, a Democratic Alliance ward councillor was one of the attendees who raised the question.
Rinus Bouwer, Parks Department manager at Mogale City Local Municipality commented that Coronation Park is not a township.
“It does not have proper and decent facilities such as electricity and sewerage systems, therefore they will have no choice but to move.”
He says the municipality is in talks with the community living at the park and that details as to what is being discussed allegedly is sub judice until an agreement is reached.
Francois van Niekerk (24) who is living in the park with his girlfriend and child, attended the meeting and told the NEWS after the meeting that he was not happy.
“I have been living there for more than four years. For me and many other, it is the only place we call home.”
Van Niekerk says the only way they will move is if they are given proper houses with decent municipal facilities.
“We will only leave if we can go as a community, because here we are a family and we don’t want those ties to be broken by moving us to different places.”
He says that if their demands are not met they will stand together as one and will fight any forced removals, which may be in the pipeline.
“We will be ready for them if they want to move us forcefully.”
Nkosana Zali, Mogale City Local Municipality spokesperson says that in view of the issue of families residing in Coronation Park being sub judice, all they can say is that the people residing on the facility will have to vacate it so that the redevelopment can proceed unhindered.
“We also started a process of encouraging everyone in the city, regardless of race, to apply for government subsidised housing. This is the reason that our Chief Mogale Housing Development in Kagiso is cited as an example of social cohesion because deserving black and white families (largely from Krugersdorp West) have benefited from the project.”
Zali says that the people residing in Coronation Park also have applied for subsidies and are awaiting provincial government approvals.
“Therefore the long-term vision of the municipality is to restore the people’s dignity through extension of security of tenure such as ownership of homes they can call their own, as well as to give Coronation Park a high-quality facelift that will mark it as a preferred recreational facility for the people of Mogale City and the West Rand in general.”
