3.2 Background to the Upper Highway Area
3.2.2 Brief Historical Overview
Hillcrest began as a ‘sleepy village’ over a hundred years ago in 1895, established by the Acutt and Gillitt families. This was predominantly a farming community functioning around a small central village. The first school was founded in 1903, and in 1943 the Hillcrest health committee was formed. The total population, all inclusive, was reported to be just over 1100 people in 1943 (School eBook library, 2016). Farms in the area included Upper Langefontein, Acutts, Gillitts and Albinia. These were primarily working farms transected by a number of dirt roads. A section of Inanda road was hardened in 1951. The population by 1971 had reached
47 just over 2780, which was when the Hillcrest Town Board was formed (School eBook library, 2016). The Hillcrest Ratepayers Association (HRA) was form in 1985 to oversee developments and act as a watchdog in association with the then Hillcrest Town Board (Develing, 2013). The HRA bore witness to the first traffic light being installed in Hillcrest. The area has certainly changed dramatically since the village and farming community it was then. Develing (2013: 1) said “Prior to that, a man stood on a barrel in the centre of the roads and directed the traffic.
His white gloves were highly visible”. Historically the Upper Highway area has been regarded as a middle class and low density suburban area with sites over an acre (over 4000 sq. metres).
Topography and lack of infrastructural development significantly affected density and development. Many of the homes in the Upper Highway area prior to 1994 had no storm water infrastructure or water borne sewerage, and this is still the case today. Waste has to be disposed of on-site by means of septic tanks with large evapo-transpiration facilities, and the installation of drainage systems to deal with storm water. There is a geographical watershed that feeds into Inanda dam. The Upper Highway is strongly delineated by ‘fingers’ of D’MOSS (Durban Metropolitan Open Space System) that define the whole area as can be seen in Plate 3.2.
Plate 3.2: Upper Highway D’MOSS system
Source: http://gis.durban.gov.za (July, 2017)
48 Without the provision of sufficient infrastructure in the form of water borne sewerage, and restricted by the absence of a waste water treatment works, the Upper Highway Area managed to maintain its ‘village and agrarian’ nature for many years lagging behind development in Durban and Pinetown. As a result of these limitations there are no high-rise office blocks or apartment blocks in Upper Highway. This changed with the development of the Hillcrest waste water treatment works (HWW) in the 1990s. It was the establishment of the HWW that sounded the ‘death knoll’ for residents determined to halt the progress of large scale developments. The aim at the time was for the HWW to serve the commercial centre of the village, with plans for future expansion. Many residences continued to be dependent on septic tanks (Smith 2016).
Once the HWW was installed, and with the sale of the Bailles farm Upper Langefontein and Gillitts farm, the face of the Hillcrest village and Upper Highway began to change and a metamorphosis took place. A building boom was experienced in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the particular development of the ‘gated community’ animal with fortified architecture and exclusive separatist living. This was reflected with the birth of an unheralded number of town house complexes, gated estates and communities in the area. Attempts were made by local residents for Upper Highway to remain a separately governed entity, but this was not possible (Smith, 2016). At a community meeting the then Mayor of Kloof boldly stated that the Outer West would not be included into Ethekwini Municipality, but in the end had little say in the matter. Independent Town Board status was lost in 1996, after which Hillcrest formally fell under the jurisdiction of the Outer West Council, a region of the then Durban Unicity. This was disassembled in the year 2000 and all local councils, including Outer West, were integrated into one ‘system’ – the Ethekwini Municipality (Develing, 2013).
Today the Upper Highway area is regarded as upmarket suburbia characterised by a ‘natural lifestyle’ in touch with the environment, ecologically appropriate, with large open spaces.
Traditionally speaking, people who invest in this area are making the move to a ‘country type environment’ on the outskirts of the city.
To the east Waterfall is linked to Hillcrest along Inanda road which runs in a west to east direction as can be seen in Plate 3.1. At the main junction of Link and Inanda road there is a
49 commercial, retail and service node. To the south Kloof is linked to Hillcrest along the M13.
Kloof has a large established suburban component with most homes on individual sites and is serviced by a number of smaller shopping centres along old main road. Hillcrest to the north, historically quiet and flanked / dominated by farms, is now characterised by a number of shopping centres, sporting and medical facilities, and municipal offices including the Outer West Offices. Most notable are the changes to the residential composition of the area with the development of an extensive number of gated communities – which took place in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This will be explored in more detail in Chapter Five.