Pienaarspoort farm residents in limbo

Pienaarspoort farm residents say the Tshwane metro has sold them down the river as a crime spike in the area follows a plan to build low-cost housing.

Part of the farm has been sold to a developer, and the Gauteng government will use it to provide low- and medium-cost housing.

As a result, informal settlements have formed in the area, and residents say this has seen their property values plummet.

Speaking to Rekord, MMC for Human Settlements Abel Tau confirmed that the process of establishing a settlement is consultative and prescribed in law. Therefore, the envisaged settlement will follow all laws.

“It is correct that the land is earmarked for the formalisation of informal settlements and, therefore, we will not be creating informal settlements.

“We will be formalising informal settlements,” he said.

Ian MacDougall, a property owner in Pienaarspoort, alongside 25 others, has put his home, which has been in his family since the 1920s, on the market.

He said he now has to give up a historic home built by Paul Kruger.

“Obviously, we don’t want to sell because it is a heritage site and we love staying here. Because of the crime, we have to move. We have no choice,” said MacDougall.

“It is for my own safety and my children’s safety.”

MacDougall further worries about what will happen to the home when he leaves because previously homes have been demolished.

Tau said the fact that some owners are selling is proof that the market conditions are great.

“The decision to sell or not to sell will always lie with the owner. Therefore, there’s no correlation between people selling houses when the market is considered conducive and the development of an area,” he said.

Residents also claim to have lost faith in law enforcement and accused their local police, Boschkop police station, of failure to control crime.

“Policing is a national and provincial competence, therefore it goes without saying that should it happen that there’s a spike in crime, crime fighting agencies will respond accordingly,” said Tau.

“How do we correlate the establishment of a settlement with crime?” Tau continued, “because there’s no study that shows that crime has increased as a result of the settlement.”

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