A combined high impact service delivery operation, bringing together several City of Johannesburg departments, has put a hijacked property in Ferndale back in the spotlight, exposing severe municipal and legal challenges in the suburb.

The operation brought several departments together to tackle properties the municipality has failed to resolve on its own. Building inspector Kithue Masu, who works for the city in Randburg, said the Ferndale property was the day’s final stop, and its most difficult. According to Masu, properties typically fall into this condition once their original owners walk away from them.

Read more: The hijacked house caught fire.

Masu added that Ferndale remains a desirable suburb, though the people living in its derelict buildings are pulling the area down. “You can actually see that Ferndale was quite a nice area, but it’s actually the people who are also living in there that are causing the area to be derelict,” Masu said.

The discovery at the site extended well beyond the main house. Multiple Wendy houses had been packed onto the stand, converting what was meant to be a single residential dwelling into shelter for an entire community. “They had an entire community on said property, and they changed the density zoning from a family of one to a congregation, multiple families,” Masu said.

Masu said officials have limited options once a property reaches this stage, since the law offers protection to both the inspectors and the occupants, regardless of whether the occupation itself is unlawful. “As much as we might go there and issue notices, the law protects everyone, both us and them,” Masu said.

Masu added that issuing notices makes little real difference on an abandoned property, since there is no owner left to answer to and no rates coming in. “So, how do you deal with a property when no one wants to take ownership? We have nowhere to house these people.”

Masu said the city typically becomes aware of hijacked properties either through routine drive-by assessments or, more commonly, when nearby residents flag changes in their area. Masu warned that once a property has been hijacked, no one can be held responsible for what happens on it, creating an opening for serious crime to take root. “It ends up being environments where people can run drug dens, prostitution rings, anything,” Masu said. “How do we deal with that when the law limits us to this space sphere?”

Also read: Tackling hijacked buildings and illegal foreigners

City Power’s revenue protection unit was also involved in the operation. Electrician Sindani Mathebula said the Ferndale property was not new to them, and that occupants had gone to considerable lengths to restore their power supply after it was cut. “This is a hijacked building. Last time, we were here and cut their electricity off. Today, we discovered that they had somehow connected a supply from elsewhere, but we have disconnected them,” Mathebula said.

The Ferndale case illustrates the scale of what the city is up against. Even co-ordinated, multi-department action carried out in a single day struggles to permanently resolve a hijacked property when there is no legal owner to hold accountable and nowhere else for the residents to go.

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