Salt River residents have vowed to fight tooth and nail to ensure that long-standing Shelley Street residents would not be evicted by the City of Cape Town, with the ward’s DA councillor also throwing his weight behind them.
Close to 70 residents gathered for a meeting facilitated by the Salt River Residents Association (SRRA) at the Blackpool Hall on Saturday.
The meeting was also attended by members of the ANC, EFF, Al-Jama-ah, and GOOD party.
On June 26, nine households received a notice from the City, informing them that their leases might be terminated due to the City’s intention to sell the properties. A similar letter was issued to occupants where no leases were in place requesting them to vacate the property by no later than July 31.
“The 31 July is completely unrealistic so we’re looking at regularising the lease agreements so that they’re not addressed as illegal occupiers but as tenants because that's what they’ve been for the last many years,” ward councillor Yusuf Mohamed said.
“I’ve written to the subcouncil, I want a full investigation on the history of the properties, what the intentions are when selling, the process that they're going to be following.”
The City said the properties were surplus to the City’s needs and that the Council approved the disposal in 1999.
SRRA executive member Sulaiman Appoles said the association was fighting for rent control in the area as well as freezing of rates for properties older than 60 years old and residency of the elderly.
“We cannot have a situation where people are paying between R10 000-R14 000 to live in a two bedroom house. It's not feasible, it's not acceptable.”
One of the affected Shelley Road residents Sheradia Brown, 62, said: “My mother was a pensioner and they wanted to charge my mother R1 million for a house which she has been living in, giving birth to children in it, and I think that was very unfair.”
Some of the resolutions agreed upon were a City-wide moratorium on evictions; Shelley Road tenants facing eviction should be title deed holders and that the homes should be made affordable to them and not sold at market-related prices.