Hundreds to be relocated from north informal settlement
The informal dwellers are understood to have started occupying the land in 2014 and were currently being provided with communal standpipes, waste management services and rudimentary sanitation through chemical toilets.
Residents of an informal settlement in Heatherdale, north of Pretoria, will be relocated to permanent stands in The Orchards, the Tshwane metro said.
Spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said 210 beneficiaries would be relocated from a privately-owned piece of land to the proposed location in the neighbouring suburb.
“The national Department of Home Affairs will attend to foreign nationals at the settlement in line with applicable legislation,” he said.
The overdue relocation comes after an eviction order was granted against the illegal informal settlement dwellers by the court in 2014.
Mashigo could not comment on when the relocation was set to take place.
Elaborating on the portion of land where the informal dwellers would be moved to, Mashigo said it was owned by the metro.
“The proposed land – Orchards 110 – is owned by the City. It is an undeveloped and vacant property of 276 hectares. It is zoned for residential use in terms of the Municipalities’ Town Planning Scheme (the scheme), 2008, effective from November 13, 2014,” he said.
“In terms of the town planning scheme, residential zoning allows for use as a ‘municipal transitional settlement’. This is defined in Section 27 of the scheme as an area of land acquired to provide temporary housing for persons identified by the municipality in need of temporary or emergency housing and which area of land shall be formalised in terms of the relevant legislation by the municipality.”
Once relocated, he said the informal dwellers would be given their permanent stands and provided with rudimentary water and sanitation and waste management services while the metro attended to permanent reticulation of water, sewer, electricity, roads and stormwater at the new location.
Both processes were expected to run parallel.
“In terms of the layout plan, the township will provide for all other land use for required social amenities such as schools, ECD, open spaces, business sites, municipal space, residential, taxi rank, etc.,” Mashigo said.
The informal dwellers are understood to have started occupying the land in 2014. They were currently being provided with communal standpipes, waste management services and rudimentary sanitation through chemical toilets.
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