Land auction challenged in court
Despite a pending court application on Monday to halt the sale of several properties placed on auction by the Tshawne metro as part of its land release programme to raise money for houses for the poor, plans for the auction is going full steam ahead.
The urgent application by Lawyers for Human Rights to stop the auctioning of the prime land on which the notorious Plastic View is situated will continue in the Pretoria high court on Monday despite a failed attempt on Friday by another group of businessmen to halt the sale.
Judge Sulet Potterill dismissed an urgent application by the businessmen, trading as Rahoke, on the grounds that the applicants failed to comply with the court regulations on urgent applications.
Rakohe was in 2012 awarded a tender for a R160 billion development on the land, near the Boulevards shopping centre in Moreleta Park. Tshwane later cancelled the tender.
Rakohe obtained a court order in October last year, setting aside the cancellation and forcing the city to restart negotiations with Rakohe, in order to conclude a mutually acceptable development agreement.
The city’s application to have the order set aside is currently pending, resulting in the October court order being suspended.
Potterill said Rakohe had sufficient redress in a claim for damages if the tender was invalidly set aside.
If it still wanted to proceed with the development without the city’s help, it could go and bid on the property next week, she said.
However, the court will hear another urgent application on behalf of the residents of Plastic View filed by Lawyers for Human Rights to interdict the city from going ahead with the auction pending a review.
The Tshwane metro is opposing Monday’s application.
The informal settlement in Moreleta Park is situated on one of more than 80 parcels of land that go under the hammer to raise an estimated R500 million to fund maintenance and infrastructure requirements, as well as basic services provision by the metro.
Protesting residents of Plastic View gathered outside the North Gauteng High Court on Friday and vowed to be back on Monday.
Tshwane mayoral spokesman Blessing Manale said Plastic View land was illegally occupied and residents were there in terms of a 2012 court order.
He said the city was in an advanced stage of negotiations with Lawyers for Human Rights, on behalf of residents, to discuss available options when the land is auctioned.
“Our intention is to negotiate a resettlement plan to avoid a legal confrontation with the residents,” he said. “The overall benefits of the land sale will benefit the greater development needs of the people while resolving the current issues.” Judge Sulet Potterill ruled an application by Rakohe Investments was not urgent and that the company had not shown it would suffer irreparable harm if the auction continued.
A separate urgent application by the Plastic View community, supported by Lawyers for Human Rights, to stop the city from selling 74 properties on auction in Hyde Park will proceed in the high court on Monday. The auction is scheduled for Tuesday.
Rakohe and Plastic View’s residents launched urgent proceedings after reading in a newspaper that the Tshwane municipality was planning to sell several municipal properties, including Plastic View, on auction.
Litigation about the settlement, also known as Woodlane Village, dates back to 2006 when the police burnt down residents’ shacks. Residents obtained a court order forcing the city to rebuild their shacks and make an alternative plan for them.
The residents, many of them foreigners, won a reprieve when the court ordered the city to establish a township on Woodlane Village and adjacent land by November 2013, or bring an application for the eviction of all of them.
Local ratepayers’ associations thereafter obtained several contempt orders against the city.
The appeal court eventually exacted an undertaking from the battling parties that they would attempt to find a “workable solution” and find innovative methods to resolve the competing interests of the different factions.
Plastic View residents claim in court papers they are still in negotiations with the city and ratepayers’ associations.
They fear the city’s plans to auction the land would negatively affect their tenure rights, and that a private owner would immediately seek an eviction order against them once the land had been transferred.
They are seeking a court order to stop the auction of all 74 properties, saying they include several large portions of land suitable for low-cost housing development.
They fear the sale would irreparably harm the constitutional rights of homeless people in Tshwane and those living in informal housing.
Read: Shackland on estate’s doorstep growing fast
Plastic View formalisation woes
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