For years and years every protesting community has been promised housing in Cornubia. This was promised to AbM in the agreement signed in 2009 after the negotiations with the City that began in 2007. It was agreed that Kennedy Road would be upgraded and all those who could not be accommodated in the upgrade would be given houses in Cornubia. Now the City are denying their own pomises, which were made to AbM in writing. It is clear that they have promised Cornubia to every community that is protesting to try and contain protest.
http://www.ecr.co.za/post/shack-dwellers-question-cornubia-allocations/
Shack dwellers' group, Abahlali baseMjondolo has slammed the way houses are being allocated at the new Cornubia development.
Shack dwellers' group, Abahlali baseMjondolo has slammed the way houses are being allocated at the new Cornubia development.
They say the process lacks transparency.
A statement on eThekwini's website quotes the mayor as saying 250 homes have been set aside for people from various wards who have a monthly income of below R3 000.
The remaining 232 homes are set to be given to residents from a settlement which will be demolished.
Abahlali's Sbu Zikode believes many deserving residents aren't being included in the process.
"We would expect, as the movement, that the authorities would've respected communities [and] engaged meaningfully with community structures at different levels in different communities to find the most needy people in the communities.
"Then we would expect that priority would be given to the people who have been living in shacks for a very long time and people who have obtained court orders," he said
– Khatija Nxedlana
http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/threat-to-seize-cornubia-homes-1.1524289#.UkpeDdLTx34
Threat to seize Cornubia homes
Shack dwellers have threatened to forcibly occupy a Durban low-cost housing development if the government does not respond to their demands.
Protesting Kennedy Road informal settlement residents blocked the M19 highway with burning tyres and scattered rubbish and rubble, forcing the closure of the M19 near the N2 interchange for four hours on Wednesday.
They warned that should eThekwini mayor James Nxumalo fail to respond to their memorandum by tomorrow, they would occupy the partly built Cornubia housing project near Mount Edgecombe.
In a memorandum to the city and MEC for Human Settlements, Ravi Pillay, protesters demanded they be allocated housing in the completed phase of the multimillion-rand project.
According to the project website, more than 60 percent of homes on the site “will comprise fully subsidised houses for the indigent”. The project is expected to provide 24 000 homes once complete, according to reports
Housing department spokesman Mbuyiselo Baloyi said the protesters were jumping the gun.
“This is a long-term project, and the municipality’s housing allocation policy will guide this,” he said.
Cornubia would have affordable rentals and some houses to be sold, “so it is not only for informal dwellers, and not necessarily those from Kennedy Road who will be allocated there”, said Baloyi.
The chairman of shack dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, Sbu Zikode, said promises made by former mayor Obed Mlaba and the chairman of the eThekwini council’s human settlements and infrastructure committee, Nigel Gumede, had created an expectation.
“In 2005, Mlaba said we would be prioritised for allocation in Cornubia. Then Gumede said the same thing in 2009.” He said he had taken a decision to no longer speak to Kennedy Road residents.
“When I speak they distort what I say. There seems to be an issue between me and them.”
City spokesman Thabo Mofokeng said no one had been promised a place in Cornubia.
He said the city would allocate housing according to its policy.