Cederberg Municipality Battles to Keep up With Sprawling Informal Settlements

• Informal settlements in Clanwilliam and Citrusdal are expanding rapidly, with thousands of people living without basic services.
• The Cederberg municipality acknowledges informal settlement growth is a major challenge.
• The municipality’s housing backlog stood at 6,355 households last year, with almost one out of every five residents living in an informal structure.

A growing number of shacks are being erected in unserviced informal settlements in Clanwilliam and Citrusdal as families with few alternatives settle on the outskirts of towns in the Cederberg Local Municipality.

A Western Cape socio-economic survey from 2023 states 18% of the municipality’s population — almost one in five people — live in informal dwellings. Many lack rubbish collection, a reliable water supply, and adequate sanitation.

In Clanwilliam, the centre of South Africa’s rooibos industry and the seat of the municipality, an informal settlement called Khayelitsha has for years been expanding next to the Clanwilliam Dam. On its outskirts, in an area known as Sandkamp, residents live in Wendy houses and makeshift homes.

Karen Zas said she moved to Khayelitsha as she could no longer afford her backyard accommodation in Clanwilliam. Her husband is a seasonal farm worker who does not work in winter.

Anna April said electricity is their biggest challenge, and the lack of lighting makes the area unsafe at night. She said the municipality recently installed a block of toilets after residents complained. As she spoke, we saw a shack being erected behind the toilets.

Citrusdal

In Citrusdal, at the foot of the Cederberg mountains, an informal settlement called Riverview has grown rapidly over the past 15 years. Satellite imagery shows it expanded from an open field in 2010 to what is currently a densely populated area. The municipality confirmed that an estimated 4,725 people live in Riverview informal settlement.

Resident Sipho Khumalo said they share communal water points fed by pipes that frequently run dry or leak. Khumalo said there was a water tank, but it was often empty. Some people have set up their own informal water connections to the municipal pipes, which contributes to leakages. Some have also made illegal electricity connections.

The municipality’s 2025/26 Integrated Development Plan (IDP) acknowledges the informal settlement is far from water sources and leaks are a problem.

Rubbish removal is limited to areas that can be accessed by trucks. Accumulated waste is burnt by residents. The portable toilets are not serviced regularly, said Khumalo.

Piles of rubbish line the roadsides and spaces between shacks. Greywater runs in ditches and down the streets, draining into a small wetland that has expanded in recent years.

Riverview is highly vulnerable to flooding. Severe storms in 2023 and 2024 forced evacuations when the Olifants River flooded. But people have returned, said Khumalo, who also said he has been on the housing waiting list for 30 years.

Janelle Simons lives in a house on the edge of the settlement and runs a communal vegetable garden. She said illegal dumping and the smoke from burning waste are major problems.

Near her is a small informal settlement established years ago and known as Rastakamp, where a group of Rastafarians have formed their own community.

Rastakamp resident Magdalene Witbooi said shack fires have become more frequent as more people have settled in the area, along with conflict over limited water.

Witbooi said the municipal chemical toilets are old, “dirty” and “unhealthy”.

Cederberg municipality spokesperson Anthony Mlata said rubbish removal occurs weekly.

The municipality did not respond to follow-up questions regarding the number of water points or tanks currently provided to Riverview township.

Upgrades

The municipality has frequently cited “uncontrolled” informal settlement growth as a major challenge. In its 2024/25 IDP, the municipality said it lacks resources to deal with the influx of people, and law enforcement struggles to keep up with new shacks being erected.

The housing backlog in the Cederberg municipality in 2025 was 6,355 households. This is more than half the total number of households in the municipality, which the province’s 2023 socio-economic profile listed as 11,953.

Funding has been provided under the Western Cape Government Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (UISP) to 436 mixed-income houses on the Clanwilliam Golf Course, and 864 houses on undeveloped land bordering the town.

Under the UISP, nearly 1,000 houses are to be built in Riverview in Citrusdal. However, no timelines for completion are attached to documentation GroundUp has been able to access. The projects are approved but are still in their planning phase. A budget for initiation/pre-feasibility gives a date for this initial phase to only finish in March 2028.

The municipality has allocated funds for services in the informal settlements. In 2023, it built 240 toilets in Khayelitsha and provided skips for dumping waste. When GroundUp visited, the skips and toilets were in good condition. But there was minimal waste collection in Riverview, Citrusdal.

A key step towards housing development has been the completed refurbishment in 2025 and ongoing upgrading of the Clanwilliam Wastewater Treatment Works (WWTW). The R80-million upgrade is being funded through the Department of Water and Sanitation’s Water Services Infrastructure Grant (WSIG).

A 2022 technical report said the need for low-cost housing is “serious and urgent” and requires that the municipality deliver “a long-term sustainable sanitation service”.

Riverview, Citrusdal, is a fast-growing informal settlement that lacks rubbish collection and a reliable water supply.

The municipality provided the residents of Sandkamp, on the outskirts of Khayelitsha in Clanwilliam, with toilets. Without electricity, the toilets are unlit and unsafe at night.

On the outskirts of an informal settlement in Clanwilliam, Khayelitsha, shacks have been erected by residents not able to afford to pay rent in town anymore.

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