RESIDENTS’ fears for the future of Clairwood, the POST, February 26 - March 3, refers.

This is well-founded given the betrayal of this historic node by successive local government councils and absentee landlords.

Since the 1880s, when it came to be settled by former indentured Indian labourers, Clairwood flourished as a microcosm of Indian culture, enterprise, industry and education. Up until 50 years ago, it had a population of 40 000. Its history, heritage and identity was comprehensively chronicled by Dr Juggie Pather in his 2015 book titled Clairwood: The Untold Story.

But its survival has been torpedoed in two ways.

The betrayal and deterioration of Clairwood commenced when absentee landlords allowed informal settlements to mushroom up on their undeveloped or untenanted properties, thereby devaluing their worth and gradually eroding the traditional social fabric of the area. Further exploiting the situation was the greed of these landlords to obtain handsome financial gains from their properties by allowing trucking companies to establish themselves randomly thereby accelerating a ruinous social transformation. Appeals to metro police to act against this invasion proved fruitless.

In tandem with this situation was the posturing of local government. This was unambiguously indicated on December 4, 2006, at a meeting held in the boardroom of the Flower Road Municipal Fresh Market. Addressing the meeting at which I was present as Clairwood’s Council representative, the then City Manager, Dr Michael Sutcliffe, stated that Clairwood’s future would be determined by economic interests.

The significance of his statement is that town planning regulations would be of secondary relevance. And indeed they have been. Situated in close proximity to the port’s container depots, in the past 19 years Clairwood has become a logistics hub. Some 48 trucking firms have infested what was a residential node the infrastructure of which was never intended for heavy transport.

Marches, protests, petitions, numerous complaints and letters by the tireless Clairwood Ratepayers’ Association to Council departments have proved futile. Thus, it is with utter disbelief that one reads the latest statement from the Council’s Development Planning and Environmental Management Unit head Lihle Phewa.

His statement that the Council is “not rezoning land” but is developing “a framework to assess development applications” is 19 years too late. Sadly and by design, economic forces have overtaken circumstances in Clairwood.

DR DUNCAN DU BOIS

Bluff

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.

THE POST

#informal-settlement

The decline of Clairwood: a historic community in crisis