Durban - The eThekwini municipality’s battle to remove tenants at the Newmarket Stables, to make way for a multimillion rand football academy, may be hit by another hurdle as the equestrian club says if it is evicted, their employees would also be without homes.
This is according to court papers filed in the Durban High Court recently by the Newmarket Stables Equestrian Club in the eviction application brought by the municipality to evict the club from its city centre premises.
Similar applications have been brought by the city against other tenants who are occupying
land earmarked for a sports academy.
The Sunday Tribune reported at the weekend that another tenant Glen Eden Trading 31 CC, which manages the market housing the almost 150 informal traders, said in its court papers it had a valid 30-year lease with the municipality.
The tenants are to be moved to make way for a R300 million international sports development centre with a football academy to be built in the Kings Park precinct.
According to a legal expert, if the equestrian club’s employees, who live on the property, are to be evicted then it would have to be carried out in accordance with the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful
Occupation of Land Act, which outlines the procedures that must take place.
In her court papers, club committee member and Newmarket Riding School proprietor Nicola Colleen Trollip said that the municipality’s assertion that no-one lived in any of the club buildings was “absolutely incorrect”.
“There are various employees of the club and other persons that reside on the premises and regard the dwellings as their permanent homes,” she said.
The occupants included two full-time grooms who had lived on the premises for approximately six-and-a-half years and three years respectively.
Other occupants included a man who did odd jobs and a former full-time groom who had lived on the premises for almost three years.
Trollip said the former groom now helped other grooms in exchange for accommodation.
There was also a part-time groom who had lived on the premises for almost three years and did work for the club in exchange for accommodation.
Trollip also said that the municipality’s own Metro Police Mounted Unit leased a portion of the property in question from the club.
She explained that the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association of South Africa leased the property in question from the municipality and that the club sub-leased a portion of the property from the association.
In 2006, the club and the municipality entered their own sub-lease agreement. “A specific purpose of this sub-tenancy was to permit the Metro Police Mounted Horse Unit use of certain portions of the same property for the purposes of stabling, grooming and exercising its horses,” Trollip said in her papers.
“In terms of the written agreement, the municipality was to pay rental to the club for the exclusive use of the metro stables area in the amount of R6120 per month. The Mounted Unit has been on the property and used the premises since that date. They are still in occupation in terms of the same sub-tenancy agreement”.
Trollip said a review application challenging the legality of the municipality’s decision to go ahead with its plans was in the process of being launched.
“The club will be requesting an order that this application(eviction) should be stayed, pending the outcome of the review application,” she said.