The contentious politics of integrated urban development in District Six

Abstract

An examination of the antagonistic relations between key stakeholders in the land restitution process in District Six reveals that development logjams can to a significant extent be attributed to the conflict between local authorities and the community. After an unsuccessful initial legal bid to preclude an individual claims process in favour of an integrated, state‐controlled development project, a Trust was established to formally represent claimants. A model of stakeholder collaboration was instituted under the auspices of the City's Integrated Development Plan, based on the centrality of planning and management expertise, and with a restricted role for public consultation and participation. Relations between the Trust and the City broke down in late 2006 following a protracted disagreement over development priorities and about where the locus of control for the project should reside. This signalled a need for a new approach to ‘integrated development’.

Keywords:

• urban planning
• land restitution
• integrated development

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Susan Levine and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. The research for this article was supported by Trent University Internal SSHRC. The Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town generously provided institutional support while in Cape Town. An earlier version of the article was presented at the ‘Land, Memory, Reconstruction and Justice: Perspectives on Land Restitution in South Africa’ Conference in Houw Hoek, South Africa, 15 September 2006.

Notes

1. For a more detailed account, see Beyers (2007b).

2. An earlier precedent for integrated development was in the Headstart initiative led by British Petroleum during the late 1980s (see Dewar 2001, pp. 52–54).

3. The Commission's role was to facilitate effective negotiation and compromise between other stakeholders. It accordingly held bilateral discussions with the Trust about claimant needs, and with the City about its urban development priorities as well as its restrictions and regulations on prospective development. These discussions set the stage for eventual bilateral discussions between the City and the Trust, based on Section 42D Framework Agreement and the Record of Understanding (L. Waring, interview, 16 July 2001).

4. The RLCC can certainly be faulted for protracted delays in the processing of claims; however, along with the Trust, it has also maintained that many planning and development processes do not require the validation of all claims (L. Waring, interview, 17 June 2002).

5. This is already evident in the implicit order of priority endorsed by the Contextual Framework: ‘The “Hierarchy of Plans” procedure seeks to serve and reconcile the key interests of the landowners, the local authority, prospective investors and developers, and the public generally’ (ibid., p. ii). As in the Section 34 application, claimants are implicitly subsumed within the public at large.

6. The RLCC faces similar problems of capacity, with a high turnover of personnel working on District Six, in part due to the combination of a tremendous workload and high expectations associated with the case (Mojapelo, interview, 7 July 2005).

7. As of 7 July 2005, the following figures applied. Of a total of 1526 claims by former tenants, 755 opted for land, while 778 opted for monetary compensation (with 273 claims yet to be finalised). Of 636 claimants who were former owners, those opting for land were being processed first; the 367 that had thus far been validated had all opted for land (Mojapelo, interview, 7 July 2005).

8. The future economic viability of the area is critical for urban renewal in light of the long‐term impact of the destruction of District Six on manufacturing along the Main Road through East City, Woodstock, Salt River and Culemborg – where many factories have long closed down – and of the need to re‐establish a viable consumer market in the CBD, the Grand Parade, and the Central City in general.

9. Elsewhere such a strategy has been met with scepticism; for example, McDonald and Smith note, ‘poor (black) Capetonians now find themselves largely denied the same cross‐subsidising benefits as their fellow white residents in the name of efficiency and transparency’ (2002, p. 33).

10. The trust has recently been more receptive to a cross‐subsidization scheme in order to help make up for the shortfall in funding for building construction (Nagia cited in VOC, 7 February 2007).

11. District Six borders one of the two City Improvement Districts (CIDs) in operation, the Central City CID, which incorporates East City. Long‐term designs include the incorporation of a significant portion of District Six in this CID (CCT‐P&E 2003, p. 7). According to McDonald and Smith (2002), the designation of certain districts as CIDs has been one of the prominent features of the neoliberal agenda in the City.

12. Recently, the small but vocal Concerned Claimants Committee strongly opposed the Trust in the role of developer, and demanded that District Six land be immediately transferred as serviced plots to individual claimants to be developed or sold as they wish. It was established in 2005, and consists of about 20–30 core members, mostly disaffected former owners and traders (Z. Allie, interview, 23 August 2006).