Bishopscourt land restitution battle

More than 50 years after the Protea Village community in Bishopscourt was forcibly removed via the Group Areas Act, environmentalists are mounting a legal challenge that could continue to keep the ageing beneficiaries out.

The Friends of Liesbeek (FoL) have lodged an application in the Western Cape High Court to halt a development because the organisation felt that ecological concerns, raised in the initial Environmental Impact Assessment, had not been adequately dealt with, reports the Cape Argus.

Protea Village Community Property Association chairperson Barry Ellman says the majority of land claimants were scattered in areas such as Lotus River, Steenberg, Manenberg and Bonteheuwel when the dreaded axe of the Group Areas Act fell.

In 2006, the community was successful in its land claim, but 17 years later, there’s been very little progress in returning them to the land.

Ellman said the Protea Village land restitution has set a precedent as the first urban restitution project in South Africa with an innovative cross-subsidisation business plan, creating a model for others to follow.

“The community is deeply committed to creating a development that is aligned with the properties in surrounding Bishopscourt and Fernwood,” Ellman said.

He says over the years, they’ve spent millions of rands in getting the development off the ground, including the “unwarranted legal costs incurred in countering legal challenges”.

Although it would not answer specific questions, the FoL said in a statement that it had “no vested interests in property or found itself under any undue influence from neighbouring private property owners in relation to the proposed development”.

“The issue is the ‘commodification’ of land that is at the headwaters of the Liesbeek comprising wetlands, springs and ‘natural’ land use cover that is responsible for regulating the water flow and quality in the Liesbeek, referred to as ERF212, which is the centre of the FoL’s objection,” the statement read.

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