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Chapter Four Defending the shack: the politics of developmental governance On a quiet day in September 2010, in the small mountainside community of Hangberg, the City of Cape Town’s anti-land invasion unit arrived to demolish shacks that had been erected on the Sentinel Mountain. An eviction order had been issued to dismantle nominally ‘unoccupied’ shacks as they were illegally built on a firebreak. Residents of Hangberg, however, described how many of the shacks were occupied, and filled with furniture and personal items. A group of residents gathered to block the land-invasion unit, and in response, the City then called in the police. Within hours, the Hangberg area had become a battleground, with dozens of residents resisting police invasion, often while young children looked on. The running battles lasted for several hours with police firing rubber bullets and residents retaliating by throwing rocks and homemade petrol bombs. There were serious injuries on both sides; three Hangberg residents each lost an eye due to police bullets. Beyond the physical injuries, a community left traumatised, shocked that their city would deploy police against them when in their view they were simply protecting their homes (Kaganof & Valley 2010). 1 Figure 4.1 and figure 4.2. Images of the Battle of Hangberg (Photos by Stephen Williams) The Battle of Hangberg represents a defining moment in the history of Hout Bay. It is an event, however, that is steeped in a long history of dialogue and confrontation with the state. This Chapter unpacks the events that led to the conflict and the forms of governance resulting from it. To restore peace to Hangberg the courts mandated the formation of a Peace and Mediation Forum (PMF) to be the exclusive structure to represent Hangberg to the state in all future development projects in the community. This Forum, understood as a form of developmental co-governance, has contributed to maintaining the peace, but little to meaningful development. Framed as a partner with the state in co-governing development in Hangberg, the PMF has no real powers, no resources, and poorly defined electoral and organisational processes. Consequently, it is very much a junior partner, overwhelmingly reliant on the state to define and drive development in Hangberg. This has allowed the state to choose its commitments and to implement them at its own pace. Conversely, the weak organisation of the PMF has seen changes in leadership without clear processes, undermining its efficacy and legitimacy. At the same time, other organisations are prevented by law from engaging the state on development projects, profoundly limiting the role of civil society in the development of Hangberg. In this context, developmental governance has meant state dirigisme, the (alleged) capture of the PMF by a local 2 network of individuals, and the replacement of politics with new forms of patronage and nepotism. The Story of Hangberg Situated above the Hout Bay Harbour, Hangberg was zoned as a coloured area under the 1950 Group Areas Act. Coloured inhabitants of the Valley, including those of Khoi/San descent, were forced to move to Hangberg by 1956. The area allocated for Hangberg residents is a small percentage of the larger Hout Bay Valley and, although it has beautiful views of the bay, it is situated on a steep side of the Karbonkelberg Mountain (Fieuw 2011; Greef 2013). Two chief issues have brought state and society into conflict, and at times cooperation, in Hangberg. The first is ongoing and systematic poaching of rock lobster and abalone by a well-organised fishing community, which will be discussed further in the following Chapter; and the second, the focus of this chapter, is land ownership and housing. As discussed in Chapter Three, Hangberg’s housing has developed over many decades through market, state and informal means resulting in a range of housing types. These are formal, large houses owned by wealthy residents (both coloured and white) in the well- serviced area of Hangberg (Harbour) Heights; state-owned hostels and rental-housing in Hangberg proper, inhabited by poorer residents; and lastly, informal shacks (or ‘bungalows’) built by the poorest of the poor along the firebreak at the top of Hangberg, or in the backyard of rental housing units (Rubin & Royston 2008). 3 Figure 4.3. Image of Hangberg and the Heights with housing type As outlined in the preceding Chapter, a key factor that led to the Battle of Hangberg was ongoing insecurity over access to housing, land and land tenure in Hangberg. Given its breath-taking views of the Hout Bay Harbour and world-famous Sentinel Mountain, Hangberg occupies a premium position geographically. Hangberg is seen as ‘prime land’ with potential value not always apparent in other poor or informal settlements (Rubin & Royston 2008:29). As noted in the preceding Chapter, the actual cost of housing is difficult to assess given the great variety of forms it takes. One of the outcomes of the relatively high premium on land in Hangberg, and the lack of secure tenure, is a pervasive fear of displacement, manifest in the protest against the ‘sale of the mountain’ in 2009, described in Chapter Three. This fear is not baseless. In the early 2000s there were tentative plans to relocate the community to an infamous area on the outskirts of Cape Town called ‘Blikkiesdorp’ (Tin Can Town) in Delft South, due to the difficulty of upgrading the area (Bakkes 2011; Ehebrecht 2014). These concerns surfaced after comments from the newly-elected ward councillor, Marga Heywood, in 4 2007 who stated that ‘Hout Bay is in a big mess and the only solution I see is that people are removed from here – even if it is against their will’ (Joubert 2007: n.p.). A community leader from Hangberg, Timothy Jacobs (quoted in Joubert 2007: n.p.), explained that this was not a viable option: Our people will not move. Our parents were forcibly removed from what is today the white Hout Bay. Now people in shacks have to move again. It will not happen. Black and coloured people have access to only 4% (sic) of land in Hout Bay. The city must find a solution here in Hout Bay to deal with the housing shortages. There’ll be war before we move. His words were prescient. The informal settlement at the top of Hangberg began shortly after 1994, and is populated mostly by people with family connections in the settlement. Initially the City Council provided each household with a letter of consent, thus granting de facto security of tenure, and committed to providing some services. However, this did not stop the further spread of shacks, and while some rudimentary services were provided by the City between 2001 and 2004, they were insufficient. As the informal settlement grew without enough clean water, sanitation and electricity, the community engaged the City about service provision (Fieuw 2011). In March 2007, the City of Cape Town successfully applied for the country’s first in situ upgrade via the Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (USIP). Initially there was optimism that the USIP would be successful as it suits environments where there are high levels of community initiated development and relatively closed, tight-knit - communities with strong leadership and civil society structures that can navigate the complex negotiations required. These dynamics were, it appeared, present in the case of Hangberg (Fieuw 2011). The Hout Bay Civic Association (HBCA) – a Hangberg-based civil society organisation historically linked to the ANC – worked closely with an NGO called the Development Action Group (DAG) to lobby for the USIP. There was also hope that the USIP would put paid to concerns of eviction as the Programme included the principle that there would be a prevention of market-related displacements and no relocations out of Hangberg. In theory then, USIP promised to regulate land ownership and grant residents security of tenure (Ehebrecht 2014). From the point of view of the state, USIP also looked promising, as it would include those who do not qualify for housing subsidies ensuring they would not be displaced, and protect existing social networks. It would allow for a more flexible approach to tenure solutions and variation from planning norms to allow for in situ upgrading. In particular, the City intended to use USIP to provide sanitation, potable water and access paths as well as subdividing the area, providing security of tenure to informal settlement residents. The City also hoped to ensure residents of the informal settlement were registered and prevent further settlement growth. In short, the City 5 planned ‘to use municipal funds to improve informal settlements in partnership with their residents. And to do that incrementally step by step. That’s our strategy’ (City housing consultant cited in Ehebrecht 2014: 98). To support the USIP, a project steering committee was formed in Hangberg, called the Hangberg in situ Development Association (HiDA). This consisted of four steering members and representatives from every block in the informal settlement. They were elected democratically to represent the community in matters pertaining to the upgrading project (Development practitioner 2017). By October 2007, HiDA and the City of Cape Town had agreed on a moratorium on the construction of new informal structures in Hangberg. If the moratorium were broken, HiDA would ask City law enforcement to intervene. The agreement also discussed the scope of the USIP, limiting the project to 302 housing opportunities, as per the number of informal households on a register drawn up by HiDA. The City, however, did not set up any arrangement to monitor the moratorium and so HiDA was left with the difficult task of policing the agreement themselves through negotiations with local residents.