Hard road to redress for Atlantis families

Cape Town 19-12-2014 Rural development and land reform department minister Gugile Nkwinti and Daniel Filippi from a property development consortium at yesterday's sod-turning ceremony in Richmond Park, Milnerton, marking the official start of successful land claimant's road to riches. Picture Yazeed Kamaldien

Cape Town 19-12-2014 Rural development and land reform department minister Gugile Nkwinti and Daniel Filippi from a property development consortium at yesterday's sod-turning ceremony in Richmond Park, Milnerton, marking the official start of successful land claimant's road to riches. Picture Yazeed Kamaldien

Published Dec 20, 2014

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Cape Town -

Hundreds of Atlantis families have received R100 000 each, plus shares in a R1 billion property development project in Milnerton, thanks to the latest land claims settlement.

Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti led a sod-turning ceremony on the claimants’ land in Richmond Park, Milnerton, yesterday. The 401 families were forcibly removed from the land during apartheid, then resettled in Atlantis, about 40km from the city centre.

They lodged the claim in 1996, and it was concluded in 2007.

Gerald Beziek, vice-chairman of a committee representing the claimants, said they were told in 2007 that the vacant land could not be used for building residential properties as it had been earmarked for use as a cemetery.

At yesterday’s event mayor Patricia de Lille said the City of Cape Town had approved the rezoning of the Richmond land for light industrial use, “in accordance with the city’s commitment to redress, but also to enable possibilities”.

“Today we are reversing what was one of apartheid’s most divisive laws, the Group Areas Act, which separated people and communities along racial lines and saw thousands of families forcibly removed from their homes,” she said.

Beziek said the Land Reform Department had helped them find a property developer who could assist in effectively using the land, which totals 835 000m2.

“We had a lawyer to guide us through the process. We are the landowners and found a property developer who will build on the land,” he explained.

The developer will also run a skills training programme for unemployed members of the claimants’ families.

He said the developer paid each of the 401 claimants R100 000 to “give them a taste of what’s to come”.

As landowners, claimants would own a 25 percent share in the development, and earn an income from its future profits via rentals.

Daniel Filippi, sales director for the development’s consortium, said four businesses had put up R1bn and formed the Richmond Park Development Company.

Over the next five to 10 years they planned to build commercial properties, including a mall, light industrial buildings and a business park. The project would be valued at about R7bn.

Residential neighbours around the land have raised concerns about the impact of traffic, its visual impact and industrial activity on their doorstep.

Provincial ANC leader Marius Fransman, who also attended Fridays’s ceremony, called the event a “celebration of good over evil”.

Saturday Argus

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