Pemary Ridge Development Committee
Reservoir Hills, Ward 23
29 July 2007

The Departments of Housing and Land Invasions
To whom it may concern

As the Pemary Ridge Development Committee, we hereby forward our request on behalf of our Pemary Ridge shack dwellers.

In terms of your slum clearance programme, you decided to make a rule for us that you count the number of existing shacks and record their sizes. You told us to remain in these shacks, and not to expand them or build new shacks, until a low-cost housing programme comes to our turn.

We have obeyed your rule for the last 16 years. We have obeyed your rule since 1991 after shacks were removed from Lot No: 3780 and Lot No: 3266. The number of structures and their sizes was kept the same even while we experienced fire disasters in Lot No: 3261 and Lot No: 3259. We obeyed your rule even though it is natural that people expand. It is natural that people grown from children to become adults and to become parents. We do not have control on that but God.

Please be advised that the same thing that happens to all communities has been happening in our community for the past 16 years. Also some community members have passed away and some have moved out of the community and have handed their houses on to other people.

In addition, we have homeless people from Juba Place who were made homeless by your Departments when you demolished the Juba Pace settlement on 11 November 2006. They have been staying in the existing structures in Pemary Ridge since then causing serious overcrowding.

We have captured the information on the eThekwini Housing Programme. We know that no land has yet been made available for our low-cost housing. We know that you are still on the level of negotiating with the land owners. We know that in terms of your time frame your main target for providing housing in KZN is now 2015.

For the reasons mentioned above we therefore took responsibility to make a plan for the next 7 years. We have allowed additional shacks to be constructed in Pemary Ridge to accommodate those you who made homeless in Juba Place and those who have grown and become parents.

We hereby request you to renumber and register the new homes, taking into consideration that we have complied with your rules for 16 years before deciding that we have to make our plan for the next 7 years.

Should you object to this request please advise us why and state your reasons in writing.

Yours faithfully
Chairperson, Raymond Philani Zungu (0729629312, rphilani@yahoo.com)