Cape Town - Bromwell Street residents who have defied a Western Cape High Court order instructing them to vacate property belonging to the Woodstock Hub have been given a temporary reprieve.
The Woodstock Hub agreed to extend the five families' eviction notice until September 26, but stressed there wouldn't be a third extension.
The High Court had ordered the residents, who had been found to have been occupying 120 to 128 Bromwell Street illegally, to be out by July 31.
The residents took to the streets to display their dissatisfaction, arguing they had been living in the area for decades.
Mayor Patricia De Lille visited the residents this week. "We are grateful for the Mayor's intervention in this matter," Charnell Commando, a possible evictee, said. "We had been really worried we'd be out in the street this weekend."
Another resident, Graham Beukes said: "It is my mother's birthday so I'm very happy that we'd been able to celebrate indoors and not somewhere on the street."
He also thanked De Lille. "If it wasn't for her we'd possibly have had nowhere to go, but at least there are plans on the table now.” De Lille's spokeswoman, Pierrinne Leukes, said the City was "working together with all concerned parties to find an amicable solution".
The Woodstock Hub said it was hoped that “over and above the extensions already granted, the stay on the eviction order will allow the occupants additional time to make use of the funds that have been raised in order to find suitable alternative accommodation to ensure the safety and security of the families involved".
A fund-raising campaign had by Thursday afternoon raised just over R73 000, including a donation from Woodstock Hub of R51 000.
Cape Argus