Construction of Homes for Bishopscourt Land Claimants Set to Begin

Sonia Roman, 78, and Martha Thomas, 84, have fond memories of growing up in Protea Village. They hope to move back soon.

• 86 homes are set to be built in Bishopscourt for land claimants who were forcibly removed from the area under the Group Areas Act.
• About 50 plots are being sold to fund the construction of the claimants’ homes.
• At a sod-turning ceremony on Tuesday, claimants reminisced about their childhood in Bishopscourt.

Land claimants, community members and government officials attended a sod-turning ceremony on Tuesday in Protea Village, Bishopscourt, for the construction of 86 homes.

Between 1959 and 1970, under the apartheid Group Areas Act, more than a hundred families were forcible relocated from here to the Cape Flats.

The Protea Village community had settled in the area in 1834. The 28-hectares of land they occupied had a church, a shop and a fresh water spring.

Today, Bishopscourt is one of Cape Town’s most expensive suburbs, while the suburbs on the Cape Flats where the claimants were relocated are battling crime, unemployment and poverty. According to Property24, the average property sale price in Bishopscourt is over R20-million. House prices sometimes exceed R100-million.

Following a successful land claim in 2006, 86 families opted to have their rights to the land restored and 46 families opted for compensation. Construction of water, electricity and road infrastructure is set to start soon and the homes are expected to be completed by 2027.

Kathleen Basson was in her twenties when her family was forcibly removed. Now aged 93, she told GroundUp, “It’s joyous, almost overwhelming to think that we’ve got so far.”

She said she remembers leaving the area as a “sad affair”, but it’s “very joyous to think that we will all soon be able to get together and be together as a community again”.

The families have waited almost 30 years to receive their land. In 2021, two state-owned plots with 12-hectares in total were transferred to the Protea Village Community Property Association by the National Department of Public Works and the City of Cape Town.

The development follows a unique cross-subsidisation model with open-market plots being sold on one side of Kirstenbosch Drive to fund the homes for the 86 returning families. Four hectares of the land will be used as a publicly accessible greenbelt along the Liesbeek river.

The first 33 open-market plots have already been sold at an average price of R4.5-million. Another 17 plots will go on sale later this year.

Sonia Roman, 78, was also at the ceremony. She said she and her family were moved to Heideveld. “When they moved us out I was 16 years old. The truck just came and [they] put us all on. Half the furniture couldn’t go.”

After they were moved, she and her six siblings slept in one room.

“It was just sand and no trees,” she says.

“I just hope to see the day we come back here again. There was never any crime in this place. We didn’t have lights but everybody knew one another. It was a lovely place to be.”

Martha Thomas, now 84, had just started her nursing career when she was moved from Protea Village, where she was raised by her single mother.

“We had such a beautiful garden. Plenty of everything. We never went hungry. Today is so sad that we have to pay for everything. Everything is so expensive. I really miss the life that we had in Protea.”

Tuesday’s ceremony was attended by Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Dean Macpherson, and Minister of Land Reform and Rural Development Mzwanele Nyhontso.

Nyhontso told GroundUp that he believed this was a good model for other restitution cases. “I wish other Communal Property Associations (CPAs) could come and study this model of working together and complying with the law,” he said.

In his speech, Hill-Lewis said that living closer to work opportunities was an “empowering game-changer” for the families. He noted the significance of the claimants returning to what is now an affluent suburb.

“Thank you for your patience and your resilience all these long years, and for your commitment to building a successful and sustainable community here. I know we still have a little way to go here before we can hand over the keys to your new homes, but we are near the end of the race,” he said.

A Protea Village sign was erected near the entrance of the Boschenheuvel Arboretum trail.

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