No deal on Bromwell Street evictions

Residents of Bromwell Street in Woodstock say no agreement has been reached with the developers who are planning to evict them this week.

Cape Town - Residents of Bromwell Street in Woodstock, Cape Town, on Monday met with the developers who are planning to evict them later this week, but said no agreement was struck in the property row that prompted long-time inhabitants to picket the suburb's trendy Biscuit Mill market.

“Nothing was settled, no agreement came out of the meeting. There were a few proposals, we spoke a bit, but now have to report back to the other residents who were not there tonight,” said Charnell Commando, the representative for the 43 residents facing a court sanctioned eviction.

A follow-up meeting is set to be held on Wednesday.

Commando said it was the first time that those who live in the six houses in question - Bromwell Street 120 to 128 - met with the directors of the Woodstock Hub after spending two years in the dark as to whom the previous owner, Reza Syms, had sold the row.

“We tried to find out who we had to pay rent to after Reza stopped coming to collect it at the end of the month, but they never came forward. For a long time we thought it was the Biscuit Mill, it was only now recently that we found out it was the Hub,” Commando added.

The residents learned the identity of the new owners after they filed for eviction with the Cape Town High Court in March.

Kate Thompson-Duwe, a public relations officer for the Woodstock Hub said its director Jacques van Embden, had been advised by his attorneys not to comment to the media further. She said she would be surprised if the residents would be granted a reprieve from eviction, due on Friday, as “there have been considerable extensions” already.

Van Embden last week gave interviews widely, telling reporters that there would be no further extension and that the company had already accommodated the residents by paying for basic services for the properties for the past two years.

He then announced that the Woodstock Hub would start a crowd-funding initiative to help the tenants of Bromwell Street find alternative accommodation with a donation of R50 000, terming the gesture an example of compassionate capitalism.

Residents and the non-governmental organisation Reclaim the City responded by saying it was deeply cynicism to call for contributions to cover the social cost of the development project.

According to Van Embden, the Woodstock Hub, listed by Trematon Capital Investments Limited as a 50 percent joint venture, plans to build apartments that will rent for R5 000 to R9 000 a month. Commando said residents paid the previous owner an average R2 500 per house a month. She said there was no housing available nearby at a similar price for those facing eviction, adding that residents had turned to the City of Cape Town but that no help was forthcoming because it was a private sale.

“They say they are not responsible at all because it is a private matter but it is not that simple because we do not have an alternative. We wrote to Benedicta van Minnen (the mayoral committee member for housing) but she said she could do nothing because we are not on the housing list,” she added.

“We wrote back and said that is not true, there are people here who have been on the list for 11 years, but we never got a response again.”

Van Minnen told ANA she was not aware of the correspondence and could not intervene as it was a private sale. “It has nothing to do with the City,” she said. “There was a court order. The court weighed up everything and ordered eviction, so there is nothing we can do.”

African News Agency