4.7 The Case Study of eThekwini Municipality
4.7.1 Historical development of Informal Settlements in eThekwini Municipality
Informal settlements in eThekwini Municipality have a long history dating from the segregation period, with the earliest settlements like Amaoti established before 1913 (Kellett & Napier, 1995) and the more recent being established in the post-1994 era. Earliest settlements were established by communities forcibly relocated by the Union government under the guise of ‘sanitation control’
(Misselhorn, 2008). Informal settlements were never fully eradicated by the Bantu Affairs Administration Board16 (BAAB) and grew incrementally over the years as housing conditions in ‘African locations’ deteriorated under the BAAB regime (Alexander, 2010). As the shortage of African housing grew, rents increased, reticulated infrastructure services remained poor and Africans managed to maintain a precarious foothold in areas near the urban periphery. In the 1960s, a few households managed to escape the attention of public officials in places such as Malukazi and Cato Manor by building their dwellings in small hidden pockets of land. By the 1970s, informal settlements began to grow again mainly in the form of clandestine settlement close to townships (Morris & Hindson, 1997).
Most of this settlement occurred on urban land privately owned by Indians and Africans and also on tribal land abutting the townships on the urban periphery (ibid).
During the 1980s, several factors encouraged the mushrooming of informal settlements in the city.
The urban poor began to increasingly challenge the BAAB, tribal authorities, and private landowners who continued to exercise controls over land allocation on the urban periphery (Morris & Hindson, 1997). The weakening control over vacant urban land by the state, private firms and individuals created room for low-income households moving out of backyard shacks in overcrowded townships and immigrants from rural areas to occupy vacant urban land and establish informal settlements
16 The Bantu Affairs Administration Board was delegated to administer and control ‘African locations’ including building housing and control the influx African labourers in urban areas (Grest, 1988).
110 (Misselhorn, 2008). The scale and pattern of settlement changed in important ways that led to the growing openness of informal settlement. Most of the informal settlement occurred initially via encroachments, although some took the form of organised land invasions, as in the case of infill areas in Umlazi in the mid-1980s (ibid). Although most of these settlements were still confined to the urban periphery, the pressure for settlement in vacant land in inner-city areas began to mount from the late 1980s (Morris & Hindson, 1997). According to Misselhorn, informal settlements began to grow everywhere in places such as Cato Manor, Canaan, Chesterville, Wiggins, Overport, Lamontville, Claire Estate and Clermont shown on Map 4.1.
Map 4.1 Areas in eThekwini Municipality experiencing rapid informal settlement in the 1980s
Source: Created by Author from eThekwini Municipality GIS database (2016)
111 Historically, the threat of removal by the local government has been a major consideration blocking residents of informal settlements from more securely establishing their hold on the land. The threat of removal began to diminish slightly after the abolition of influx control laws in 1986 and more markedly since 1990. The way that the ‘group areas’ were drawn by the authorities to impose residential segregation had an impact on housing affordability by circumscribing the choice of residential location. Low-income households who are predominantly African were denied the right to reside in inner-city areas close to job opportunities. Hence, the abolition of influx control and slum clearance policies paved the way for these households to establish informal settlements close to employment opportunities (Misselhorn, 2008). In these settlements, almost half of the residents previously lived in backyard shacks in overcrowded low-income townships before moving out into these settlements hoping to eventually access public housing (Morris & Hindson, 1997). The minority of the residents of these settlements were immigrants from rural areas and small towns; the residents consisted of different groupings of ethnicity (Schensul, 2008; Oelofse & Dodson, 1997). The tension created by such diversity fuelled growing violence and instability in informal settlements especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Morris & Hindson, 1997).
Research by Hindson et al (1997), Morris (1992) and Byerley (1992) on migration patterns within the metropolitan in the late 1980s and early 1990s indicates that a common practice by low-income households to keep 'moving on' from one informal settlement to the next in search of a more strategic location within the city was to escape violence or the threat of violence. In addition to the phenomenon of 'moving on' there were indications that low-income households maintained footholds in a number of locations within the city as fall-back options in the face of insecurity. They also maintained these footholds as a way to gain the capacity to exploit a combinations of cheap housing options close to job opportunities to improve chances of household survival (Morris & Hindson, 1997).
The urban poor were constantly moving from the urban periphery to inner-city areas in search of better job opportunities.
Informal settlements that were established post-1994 such as Lacey Road, Mandela and others were formed through similar approaches of land invasion and encroachment used to establish pre-1994 settlements (Marais & Cloete, 2014). Consolidation of the post-1994 settlements is constrained by the 'moving on' phenomenon. Hence, the lack of housing consolidation in the post-1994 settlements led Alan Mabin to conclude that residents of these settlements consider their housing as temporary and a means through which they could gain access to public housing. The prospect of being a potential beneficiary of public housing encourages to urban poor to limit the resources low-income households apportion to consolidate their housing (Kellett & Napier, 1995).
112 Observation of the physical structure of these settlements reveals a number of common characteristics. The walls and roofs of the dwellings are constructed using corrugated iron sheets, scrap cardboards and scrap metal (Hunter & Posel, 2012). The less permanent construction methods appear to be linked to earlier stages in the settlement process, and more permanent methods are indicative of more stable tenure. However, an observation of older settlements such as Amaoti reveals that more permanent consolidated houses are interspersed with more recent and impermanent dwellings. Newer settlements, on the other hand, such as Bester's Camp, have a more homogenous, though impermanent profile. Most of the earliest settlements moved slowly towards consolidation.
The slow pace of consolidation in eThekwini Municipality could be a result of the ‘moving on’
mentality, lack of secure tenure rights, expectation of getting a free public house, unstable or temporary work opportunities that ensure the urban poor are constantly relocating in search of new jobs.