Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347
From ‘‘contravention of laws’’ to ‘‘lack of rights’’: redefining
the problem of informal settlements in South Africa
Marie Huchzermeyer*
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Received 30 August 2002; received in revised form 9 June 2003; accepted 13 June 2003
Abstract
Informal urban land occupation in South Africa is treated in a technocratic manner, consistent with the
policy of orderly urbanisation introduced in the 1980s. This approach focusses on the contravention of laws
governing property and land use, and accordingly results in most cases in evictions and relocations. A new
mandate of the national Department of Housing is to eradicate the phenomenon of urban informal
settlements in the next 15 years. This mandate gives new justification to the deterministic approach of
eviction and relocation within the government’s standardised capital subsidy programme for housing
delivery. Legislation has been tightened to enable the repression of new informal land occupations. The
recent housing strategy proposal for Johannesburg, which advocates a zero tolerance approach to informal
land occupations, remains largely undisputed. However, the media has often sided with the urban poor in
recent cases of forceful eviction. This paper argues for a new paradigm, based on the recognition of the
infringement of constitutional rights that is enabled by informality. Far from seeing informal settlements as
a solution to the housing problem, it draws attention to the multiple levels of exploitation that are common
to residents of informal land occupations. A socially compatible approach to intervention is suggested. This
starts with mechanisms to protect residents against the infringement of their constitutional rights, rather
than acting on their contravention of property laws.
r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: South Africa; Informal settlements; Housing policy; Rights
ARTICLE IN PRESS
*Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, Post-graduate Housing Programme, University of
the Witwatersrand, CDBE, John Moffat Building, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, South Africa. Tel.: +27-11-7177688;
fax: +27-11-4032308.
E-mail address: huchzermeyerm@archplan.wits.ac.za (M. Huchzermeyer).
0197-3975/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0197-3975(03)00058-4
1. Introduction
Policy makers in South Africa have defined the problem of informality in human settlements
from a technical perspective, with a focus on the illegality of the settlement process, of the land use
and the building type. This definition, which has promoted the socially disruptive replacement of
such settlements with formal, standardised units, is based on assumptions of the functioning of
the low-income housing market that appear incorrect, when compared to the findings of socially
oriented analyses. However, the socially oriented discourse on this topic, while highlighting
incompatibilities in the intervention approach, has not presented an alternative definition of the
problem of informality. This discourse has therefore had a limited impact on the political
discourse on informal settlements in South Africa, which has maintained much continuity with
the bureaucratic approach that was mainstreamed in the 1980s. A redefinition of informality in
human settlements, and its promotion, is required in order for politicians and their officials in
South Africa to recognise and more appropriately respond to the reality of urban land invasions
and informal settlements.
This paper begins by situating the context of the current mandate of the national Department
of Housing, to address informal settlements. It highlights the danger of a top-down and
technically defined approach to fulfilling this mandate. With the example of the 2000 draft
Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Housing Strategy, the paper presents the alarming continuity
in expert thinking in dealing with informal settlements in South Africa since the mid 1970s, even
before the introduction of the Orderly Urbanisation policy a decade later. The paper asks how the
South African government can move beyond the entrenched state of the art, towards greater
respect for human rights in the treatment of informality in human settlements.
The paper argues that the problem of informality and illegality in human settlements should be
defined from the perspective of those needing to cope with this phenomenon on a daily basis. The
legal focus then would not be on the contravention of laws, but on the lack of formal rights, or
rather the lack of protection from the infringement of rights by others, including the state. This
focus would not lead to a condemnation of the practice of informally occupying land (in the
contravention of laws), but to a condemnation of the exploitative and repressive practices that
such informality enables. It is the lack of formal rights that allows for exploitation by politicians,
by irresponsible or even repressive bureaucracies, and by informally operating groups or
individuals in the control over land, access to services, commercial activities, etc. In the final
section, the paper asks whether an alternative intervention approach may lead from the
recognition of informality as the lack of rights, rather than the contravention of laws.
2. The new mandate of the South African housing department: eradicating informal land occupation
Since late 1999, the question of informal urban land occupation has received national attention,
as a result of invasions, evictions and tensions between policy, programmes and the judiciary. In a
landmark case in December 1999, the High Court ruled in favour of a group of 510 children with
their parents, informally occupying a sports field in the sites and services settlement Wallacedene
in Cape Town after being forcefully evicted from adjacent land. The ruling was with reference to
Section 28(1)(c) of the Constitution (Republic of South Africa, 1996), which gives children an
ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347334
unqualified right to shelter. The high court ruling obliged the authorities to provide minimum
basic shelter in the form of tents, portable latrines and a regular supply of water, until such time as
the parents were able to shelter their children themselves (Davis, 1999).
This ruling was opposed by the Municipality in the Constitutional Court. The subsequent
Constitutional Court ruling in October 2000 was based on Section 26 of the Constitution,
which defines a right to access to adequate housing, though qualifying this as a progressive
right, to be realised within the available resources of the state (Republic of South Africa, 1996).
After assessing the government’s housing programme, which caters for long-term delivery
and not for the immediate needs and crises faced by those living in intolerable conditions, the
Constitutional Court ruled that the housing programme should be revised, to ensure that
at least ‘‘a significant number of people in need are afforded relief’’ (quoted in Financial Mail,
2000; see also Huchzermeyer, 2003b). In a television documentary on this case, screened on
SABC3 (2000) in South Africa, the national Minister of Housing admits that it is ‘‘back
to the drawing board’’ with regards to policy for informal land occupation (Hands-On
Productions, 2001).
The question of informal urban land occupation again became an embarrassment to the
national Department of Housing in February 2001, when President Mbeki addressed the nation at
the opening of Parliament. In his speech the President highlighted the government’s aim ‘‘to
conduct a sustained campaign against rural and urban poverty and underdevelopment’’. This
campaign would be implemented through ‘‘an integrated rural development strategy as well as an
urban renewal programme’’. While applauding progress with regard to rural development, he
added that the same could not be said for the Urban Renewal Programme (Mbeki, 2001, p. 9).
The Urban Renewal Programme, with the aim of ‘‘further speeding up the pace of local housing
delivery,’’ falls under the national Department of Housing (Scheepers, 2001b). As a result of the
President’s critical words, the Housing Department sees itself mandated to respond to
inadequacies that have been identified in its programmes.
Linked to the President’s statement at the opening of Parliament is the vision of a ‘‘shack-free
city’’. Here the mandate to the national Department of Housing is to ‘‘eradicate informal
settlements’’ in the next 15 years (Mphafudi, personal communication, see also Mthembi-
Mahanyele, 2001). A socially insensitive interpretation of this mandate was evident in
government’s uncompromising response to the informal occupation of land in Bredell in
Kempton Park, Johannesburg, in July 2001 (Ngobeni & Deane, 2001; see also Huchzermeyer,
2003b). This was followed by government’s announcement of intentions to widen the scope of
prosecution through an amendment to the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful
Occupation of Land Act 19 (abbreviated PIE) of 1998 (Mvoko, 2001), though this has not been
followed through to date.
Informal land occupation is officially considered a legacy of the past, from which the new
South Africa must progress. It is a legacy that the housing policy launched in 1994 has not
been able to redress. And while the 1994 Housing White Paper states that ‘‘the time for policy
debate is now past—the time for delivery has arrived’’ (Department of Housing, 1994,
p. 4), the national Department of Housing is reopening the debate (albeit internally) on in-
formal settlement intervention and has embarked on a scoping exercise to estimate shack
numbers and informal settlement types country wide (Mphafudi, Naidoo, & Lewis, personal
communication).
ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347 335
3. South African state of the art: enforcement of law and order
How will the national Department of Housing respond to the data it collects on the scale and
nature of informal settlements? The real danger exists, as recognised by national Housing
Department officials (Mphafudi et al., personal communication), that the mandate of eradicating
shacks by 2015 is translated into a top-down approach. Already, developments in Alexandra
Township, one of the five focus areas of the national Urban Renewal Programme,1 have had a
heavy hand in dealing with informal land occupation. The recent forced relocations from a shack
settlement on the flood-prone banks of the cholera-threatened Jukskei River in Alexandra to a
distant relocation site in Diepsloot, an unserviced area in Roodepoort on the East Rand (some
30 km from Alexandra), prompted media statements such as ‘‘Alex removals suggest apartheid-
style remedy’’ (Sunday Independent, February 18, 2001a), ‘‘Disturbing echo in Alex removals’’
(Sunday Independent, February 18, 2001b). With regards to the relocation site, media reports 1
month later were equally critical: ‘‘Alex residents moved to Diepsloot still without basic services’’
(Nhlapo (2001) in the Mail and Guardian, March 16–22, 2001).
As suggested by the media, informal settlement policy in South Africa has not changed
significantly with the change in government in 1994. Current practice was mainstreamed with the
Policy of Orderly Urbanisation in the mid 1980s, though practiced selectively in preceding
decades, and having roots in the liberalising policy proposals of the 1940s, which were not
politically sustainable at the time (Huchzermeyer, 2002a,b). The Relocation of shack dwellers to
distant greenfield developments was part of the Orderly Urbanisation Policy at its introduction.
Officially, it advocated ‘‘controlled squatting’’ on ‘‘designated land,’’ through the ‘‘upgrading’’ of
invaded land or the ‘‘orderly development’’ of uninhabited land (Cooper et al., 1987, p. 342).
‘‘Homeownership’’ and ‘‘realistic standards’’ were to apply to these developments (Cooper et al.,
1987, p. 333), while implementation was to occur through the private sector (Cooper et al., 1987,
pp. 333, 334). In practice, selected informal settlements were afforded transit camp status, until
such time as a sites and services project was elaborated, and the households could be relocated
(Huchzermeyer, 2003a).
Independent Development Trust (IDT)2 funded sites and services projects of the early 1990s
continued this practice, by assigning developers the role of identifying beneficiary communities for
large-scale greenfield projects, although some attempts at in situ upgrading were pioneered at this
time. The bulk of the post-1994 housing delivery has likewise been on greenfield sites, to which
shack dwellers have been relocated.3
ARTICLE IN PRESS
1As mentioned in the presidential speech, R1.3 billion will be spent on ‘‘integrated development’’ of Alexandra over
the next 7 years (Mbeki, 2001, p. 9).
2The IDT, was set up in 1990 through a government grant of R2 billion, in order to implement the poverty alleviation
concepts of the Urban Foundation, a private sector think tank that was formed in response to labour instability in 1976
(Nuttall, 1997).
3From 1994 to 1998, the Gauteng Province delivered 61 greenfield projects, with a total of 55,435 stands. Alternative
approaches to housing were either still under elaboration, or had achieved a scale in the order of only 1000 units
(Gauteng Department of Housing and Land Affairs, 1998, p. 3). A similar trend is evident in Cape Town, where 79% of
housing subsidies from 1994 to March 2001 were for project-linked developments, with attempts to maximise project
size (Cape Metropolitan Council, 2001).
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347336
The definition of informality in human settlements in South Africa, throughout the 20th
century, has focussed on the contravention of laws, particularly those protecting private property,
and those pertaining to land-use regulations. The threat of informal settlements to privileged
property rights, as well as their threat to the security, health and well being of the privileged
classes, has justified a socially insensitive intervention through relocation, associated with the
enforcement of law and order. As argued by Berner (2000, p. 4), ‘‘[i]f illegal settlements are merely
seen as a violation of private or public property rights, then the forceful and if necessary violent
restoration of these rights is the obvious solution’’.
In South Africa, the rights of privileged classes were, until recently, underpinned by racially
discriminatory legislation, excluding the black population from full citizenship, and by
implication from participation in democratic decision-making. Since the gradual dismantling of
apartheid legislation, which began in the mid 1980s, the urban land rights of the privileged have
been upheld through market-oriented policy and discourse, which associates informal settlements
primarily with threats to land values. More subtly, this is supported by the conservationist
discourse, which emphasises a causal link between land invasions and the destruction of sensitive
habitats and pollution of waterways. This discourse, associating land invasions with criminal
intent or unjustified personal gain, has legitimised a socially insensitive intervention through
relocation, and the enforcement of law and order.
The draft Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council Housing Strategy of April 2001 presents
this position very clearly. Under ‘‘Housing Challenges’’, it lists ‘‘Land invasions: the
Johannesburg Metropolitan Area has been consistently subjected to an ongoing process of
illegal land and building invasions that are either politically or commercially driven’’ (Spadework
Consortium, 2000, p. 6). Under its three-pronged response to housing challenges (Land Release,
Informal Settlement Upgrading, and Preventing and Containing Land Invasions), the strategy
proposes the following approach to dealing with informal occupation of land: to survey all
existing informal settlements, to register existing structures, and to freeze the settlements by
preventing any additional informal structures. Any new invasion of land, and any expansion or
densification of existing settlements will be prevented through the subprogramme on ‘‘Preventing
and Containing Land Invasions’’. Through this programme, speedy removal by a ‘‘Rapid
Response Unit’’ is envisaged (Spadework Consortium, 2000, p. 26). Strategic land and buildings
will be under ‘‘surveillance’’ (Spadework Consortium, 2000, p. 26), and security firms are to be
subcontracted to assist with demolition and removal of invaders. Further, it is suggested that
If the Response Unit is required to move the same person more than 3 times they should report
them to the Police and the person should be jailed for a specified period of time. By-laws should
be put in place in this regard (Spadework Consortium, 2000, p. 27).
Most alarmingly, this ‘‘zero tolerance’’ policy is to be implemented through a ‘‘Legal
Campaign’’ to review and tighten the legislation, to set the necessary precedents, and to lobby for
conservative support from the legal sector (Spadework Consortium, 2000, p. 27).
The policy proposal is remarkably identical to policy introduced for ‘‘coloured squatting’’ in
1974. A nation-wide freeze of all coloured informal settlements was applied that year, whereas
African informal settlements continued to be demolished en mass, and African women and
children were arrested and repatriated to rural homelands. These ruthless interventions were
supported by the progressive tightening of the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act (Huchzermeyer,
ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347 337
1999b, p. 94). With the delivery of formal ‘‘coloured’’ housing, the number of registered shacks in
Cape Town was reduced from 27,000 in 1974 to 7800 in 1981 (Howe, 1982, p. 6). However, the
official freeze bore no relation to the actual housing need hidden in overcrowded formal housing.
As from 1974, new coloured ‘‘squatters’’ were treated under the same preventative legislation as
African ‘‘squatters’’, and in the absence of any alternative, ‘‘squatting’’ for African and coloured
people alike became a life of repeated harassment, demolition, arrests, and reconstruction of
shacks.
The Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Housing Strategy appears to be no more realistic
and no less ruthless. Existing settlements are to be upgraded or relocated at a rate that will take
10–13 years,4 provided the complete moratorium on informal settlement expansion and land
invasion, or the so-called ‘‘zero tolerance policy’’ (Spadework Consortium, 2000, p. 28) is
enforced. This is extremely unlikely. Firstly, the ‘‘Housing Challenges’’ section of the
draft strategy makes no reference to rates of growth in informal settlements. A freeze of
informal settlements can only be implemented if the affected population is stable or decreasing.
There are no signs to indicate that this is the case. On the contrary—there is increasing evidence
that the HIV/AIDS epidemic5 in South Africa, which increases household vulnerability, will drive
even more households and individuals into selling their assets and moving into insecure tenure,
be this a life on the inner-city streets, or in peripheral informal settlements (Thomas &
Howard, 1998).
Secondly, informal settlement residents have demonstrated their resistance to external control.
Decades of South Africa’s recent apartheid history are shamed by vulnerable women and
children courageously defying policies of zero tolerance. Their resilience and determination for a
survival in the cities remains the same. Sadly, for those still needing to resort to informal
residences, insecurity and vulnerability has also not altered significantly. For those that
have received temporary legal status, so-called ‘‘transit camp’’ status, a formal development
process and relocation may lie many years in the future. Those that have received formally
titled plots (in most instances these are in relocation sites distant from the original settlement) face
new challenges: individualisation and commodification, social division and segregation, new
economic burdens associated with increased travel distances, and ultimately (at least for
some) renewed displacement as the subsidised asset (the capital subsidy house) is converted into
much-needed cash. This too is restricted by a recent legislative amendment for the first 8 years
after possession (Scheepers, 2001a; Republic of South Africa, 2001), though probably not
enforceable.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
4Spadework Consortium (2000, p. 5) estimate 117,000 informal settlement households in the Greater Johannesburg
Metropolitan Area, and the proposed target for upgrading or relocation is ‘‘at least 8750 households per annum’’
(Spadework Consortium, 2000, p. 25). Accordingly, it would take at least 13 years to cater for these households.
5One out of every seven adults was believed to be infected with HIV in mid 2000 (Thomas & Crewe, 2000, p. 2),
whereas statistics from November 2000 indicate that one of every nine people, and one in every four women in South
Africa are HIV positive (Department of Health, 2001). A worst-case scenario is a negative population growth rate for
South Africa by 2008 (Abt Associates, 2000, cited in Tomlinson, 2001). However, such figures cannot be used
indiscriminately to suggest a reduction in the population of the poor—AIDS statistics have at times been used
indiscriminately to support particular ideological positions (Gilbert & Walker, 2000).
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347338
4. Moving beyond the state of the art?
These processes and implications have been recognised and highlighted in the critical South
African research literature.6 I have asked elsewhere (Huchzermeyer, 1999b, 2001a), why these
research insights have not challenged the state of the art of dealing with informal settlements.
One reason certainly appeared to be that researchers producing insights into the social
implications of the current approach have not developed any clear alternatives for debate
(Huchzermeyer, 2001a). The relevant social scientists are not positioned in the policy discourse,
which remains dominated by experienced technocrats drawing on flawed social paradigms (see
Huchzermeyer, 2001a).
Why has this flawed and inadequate discourse and policy on informal land occupation in South
Africa endured? One explanation may be drawn from Rein and Sch .on (1993, p. 145), who
argue that ‘‘[s]tubborn policy controversies tend to be enduring, relatively immune to re-
solution by reference to evidence, and seldom finally resolved’’. They explain this dilemma
with reference to ‘‘frames’’ or paradigms, through which people select, organise, interpret and
make ‘‘sense of a complex reality to provide guideposts for knowing, analysing, persuading,
and acting’’ (Rein & Sch .on, 1993, p. 146). These frames integrate ‘‘facts, values, theories and
interests’’, reflecting ‘‘multiple social realities’’ (Rein & Sch .on, 1993, p. 145). It is the values
and interests reflected in particular frames or paradigms, that appear to resist democratic
processes of decision-making over conflicting interests such as informal occupation of land by the
urban poor.
In an analysis of the politics of Washington think tanks, Fischer (1993, p. 22) refers to
the ‘‘theory of technocracy’’, which explains ‘‘a governance process dominated by technically
trained knowledge elites,’’ who ‘‘replace or control democratic deliberation and decision-making
processesywith a more technocratically informed discourse’’. While Fischer (1993, p. 24)
argues that this theory is often applied to scapegoat a ‘‘technocratic class’’ as the obstacle
to ‘‘democratic socialism’’, he does acknowledge (almost a decade ago) a new style of
policy-making, ‘‘a kind of politics of expertiseyemerging as part of the contemporary
governance strategies’’.
Technocratic definitions of contentious phenomena such as illegality or informality in
human settlements, as well as the selective use of particular social and environmental concepts,
clearly play a crucial role within strategies of dominance over the policy discourse, be this
by multi- or bilateral agencies, or by the expert local elite. In South Africa, it has been argued that
the housing policy process from the early 1990s to date has been dominated, not by civil
society, critical academic researchers, or even by the thinking in international agencies, but
by the dominant local technocratic elite (see Bond, 1997, 2000; Lalloo, 1999; Huchzermeyer,
2001b). It must be acknowledged, however, that the technocratic approach in South Africa also
serves a delivery-driven political agenda, through which the political elite sidelines social
movements. If the Department of Housing can still be held to its 1994 commitment to ‘‘a
partnership between the various tiers of government, the private sector and the communities’’
within which ‘‘all partiesyargue for their rights’’ (Department of Housing, 1994, p. 4), then it
ARTICLE IN PRESS
6See for instance Huchzermeyer (2001a) for a review of South African informal settlement literature of the 1990s.
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347 339
should allow for a definition of the problem of informality in human settlements by those actually
needing to cope with this phenomenon on a daily basis—residents and their community-based
representatives, who struggle to secure a place to live, and to secure the gradual improvement of
its conditions.
5. The situation of informal land occupation in South Africa: enabling the infringement of rights
As yet, we have no quantitative knowledge at national level, of the scale of informal urban
land occupation in South Africa. The 1996 and 2001 census failed to differentiate between
shacks on serviced sites and those on informally occupied land (see Orkin, 1998; Statistics South
Africa, 2003), indicating that insecurity of tenure is not an area of national government
concern. While it is paramount that we have clarity on the scale and rate of growth of informal
urban land occupations in South Africa, policy and legislation should be informed not by
numbers alone, but by the qualitative aspects of life in informally occupied urban areas. This
should be drawn from the daily experiences of residents and their community-based
representatives, struggling to secure a place to live, and to secure the gradual improvement
of its conditions.
Anecdotal evidence of the involvement of the Pan Africanist Congress (an opposition party) in
the ‘‘sale of land’’ in the recent land invasion at Bredell (Kempton Park) on the outskirts of
Johannesburg (see Dube & Bulger, 2001) has popularised assumptions around political and
financial exploitation in the informal urban land occupation process. However, neither are all
informal urban land occupations organised for political and financial gain, nor are political and
financial exploitation the only forms of exploitation enabled by informal land occupation. As long
as regulated access to land for the urban poor is not improved (this includes improving the
location of the land that is made available to the poor, and the rate at which it is released), the
poor have no alternative but to resort to informally occupying land. The unregulated nature of
the informal settlement process and its ongoing management opens up opportunities for
exploitation at various levels.
At the neighbourhood level, not all individuals are equally committed to the unwritten conduct
that governs the use of collective or shared space. The denser an informal land occupation, the less
privacy households have, and the more vulnerable they are to disrespect by neighbours. In the
densest section of KTC in Cape Town (in excess of 250 dwelling units per hectare),7 women
complained that grey water and sewerage buckets were emptied in the little space there was
between shacks. Children had nowhere to play, and the density of the shacks prevented mothers
from keeping a watch over their children. Frequent child abuse was associated with the high shack
density (Huchzermeyer, 1997).
Beyond the willful exploitation, by child abusers, of the fact that children roam unprotected,
children are vulnerable to other forms of exploitation of the unregulated nature of these
settlements. A recent media article reported that ‘‘[s]tolen electricity claims at least 11 young lives
[in the year 2000] in Cato Crest squatter camp’’ (ka-Manzi, 2001, p. 9). Children are electrocuted
ARTICLE IN PRESS
7This figure is derived from the shack densities that were analysed in the Nyanga/KTC area in 1995 (see Awotona
et al., 1995).
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347340
by poorly insulated live electricity wires serving individual households. According to this media
report (ka-Manzi, 2001), concerned and outraged neighbours received threats from the
perpetrators. In my own research in informal settlements in Nyanga, Cape Town (Huchzermeyer,
1996), households pirating electricity were rendering a commercial service to the squatter
community, by selling refrigerated goods and offering entertainment (at a cost). In some
instances, owners of such enterprises were living in nearby formal housing, therefore exploiting
informality in more than one sense.
The limited status of the interspersed squatters in Nyanga in 1996, with regard to representation
in township-wide civic committees and development forums, meant that those having to cope with
informality had little power to suggest rules and regulations that might limit their exploitation.
This same limitation in representation also meant that squatters in Nyanga were powerless against
neglect by local government officials, who collected refuse and night soil irregularly, and were
abusive when night-soil buckets were spilling over. Residents and local squatter committees also
expressed that their concerns over fire hazards were neglected by those in positions of power
(Huchzermeyer, 1996).
This relatively powerless position opens up opportunities for political exploitation from the
level of local government councillors, who have the official role of local representation. As
representatives of entire wards (including formal and informal areas), rather than individual
informal settlements, councillors tend to originate from formal settlements. Even where they are
residents of informal settlements, they have tended to represent the formal technically driven
system of resource allocation and service delivery, rather than the social realities in informal
settlements. Local councillors tend to change sides (see Sithole, 2001), as soon as their positions
become jeopardised, as was the experience in four case studies across South Africa, of people-
driven initiatives towards informal settlement improvement (Huchzermeyer, 1999a). In this sense,
coping with informality implies coping with a system of representation that seldom identifies with
the concerns of those living in informal settlements. The introduction in August 2001 of ward
committees, has the potential of overcoming this problem. However, it is for individual
municipalities to decide, whether these committees have an advisory and communicative function,
or whether other functions and powers are delegated. It has been pointed out that there is ‘‘as yet
no legislation or policy that guarantees that ward committees will become a model for effective
community participation’’ (Hollands, 2001, p. 1).
6. Treating the problems of informality from the perspective of those living in informal settlements
A definition of informality in human settlements from the position of those living in informal
land occupations would emphasise the lack of protection against the infringement of rights, rather
than the contravention of laws. The Bill of Rights of the South African Constitution (Republic of
South Africa, 1996) enshrines the rights ‘‘to privacy’’ (Section 14), ‘‘to an environment that is not
harmful to their health and well-being’’ (Section 24(a)), ‘‘to have access to adequate housing’’
(Section 26), and for every child the right to ‘‘shelter’’ (Section 28(1)(c)) and ‘‘the rightyto be
protected from maltreatment, neglect, abuse or degradation’’ (Section 28(1)(d)). However, the
exploitation enabled through informality means that those residing in informal land occupations
have no protection against the infringement of these rights.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347 341
Exploitation of settlement informality has been recognised in the South African research
literature. However, the most influential literature, which is explicitly directed at policy
makers, has associated exploitation primarily with community organisations. These are portrayed
as being made up of individuals seeking power and personal gain (see for instance Hendler, 1999,
p. 136; Tomlinson, 1996, p. 51). The recommendation leading out of this position is one of
individualising the relationship between informal settlement residents and the state (see for
instance McCarthy, Hindson, & Oelofse, 1995, p. 69; Hindson & McCarthy, 1994, p. 28).8 By
entitling households individually to a standardised, product-linked capital subsidy (even if this
entitlement is only realised a decade later), any definition of regulation and intervention is taken
out of the hands of community representatives. In effect, this approach, which requires
individualisation through the reshaping if not the complete relocation of informal settlements,
ignores the possibility that by empowering informal settlement residents through effective
protection against multiple levels of exploitation, more socially compatible solutions may be
sought.
A shack settlement with a density in excess of 250 dwelling unites per hectare, as with the one
portion of KTC in Cape Town mentioned above, clearly requires remodelling into a more
adequate spatial arrangement. Despite the spatial inadequacies, residents of this portion of KTC
in 1997 expressed their pride in the settlement, their wish not to be relocated, and their interest in
solutions (possibly multi-story) that would enable all households to remain in the settlement
(Huchzermeyer, 1997). Instead, the settlement has now been replaced through a standardised
sites-and-services ‘‘roll-over’’ approach (on average, 37 dwelling units per hectare).9 Most
households have been relocated to standardised capital subsidy developments within the
‘‘Integrated Serviced Land Project’’. Could a rights-based approach to the KTC settlement have
led to a more compact and socially compatible solution?
Returning to the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Housing Strategy of April 2000
(Spadework Consortium, 2000), perhaps the most worrying aspect is the conservative project to
lobby the legal sector for support of the ‘‘zero tolerance’’ approach to new land invasions and to
any densification and expansion of existing squatter settlements. In South Africa’s transition in
the 1980s, the gradual crumbling of the enforcement of apartheid legislation regarding land
invasions was associated with courts being increasingly sympathetic to the plight of the land
invaders (see Budlender, 1990). This led to transit camp status for informal settlements such as
Bloekombos in Cape Town in 1985 (Awotona et al., 1995, p. 4) and Weilers Farm in Southern
Johannesburg in mid 1987 (Huchzermeyer, 2001c).
It would be hoped that courts have remained sensitive to the experience of the landless urban
poor, and would not be persuaded to support the zero tolerance approach suggested in the
Greater Johannesburg Housing Strategy. Indeed, the legal sector has a central role to play in a
rights-based redefinition of the treatment of informal urban land occupation in South Africa. This
would translate into the condemnation and effective criminalising of the exploitative and
repressive practices that are enabled by the unregulated nature of the settlement, and the
development of appropriate and enforceable laws and regulations to protect constitutional rights.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
8For a more detailed discussion of this literature, see Huchzermeyer (2001a).
9This figure is derived from the densities that were being implemented in sites-and-services projects in the mid 1990s
in the Nyanga/KTC area (see Awotona et al., 1995).
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347342
This would involve the development of appropriate forms of tenure security, appropriate
regulations governing settlement extension and densification, appropriate regulations to resolve
neighbourhood disputes, to protect children from willful abuse as well as negligent environmental
harm, appropriate regulations to guarantee rapid response to emergencies such as fires, and
appropriate means of guaranteeing fair representation, access to truly integrated urban
development, and participation in its definition and implementation.
Such an approach to dealing with informality and illegality in human settlements would go
beyond the concept, first promoted internationally in the 1960s (Turner, 1968; Magnin, 1967),
that squatter settlements are not a problem but a solution. It recognises that informality in itself is
no real solution, unless the effective protection of rights is ensured. This definition also recognises
that an informal settlement is not simply a collection of individual households that have found a
solution to their individual housing need. Informal settlements are invariably a collective effort to
secure access to land and shelter. Collectively, the residents continue to seek the protection of their
rights.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) hosted by Johannesburg in
September 2002 drew some attention to the South African treatment of informal urban land
occupation, though less through its formal agenda, than through demonstrations organised by
South African civil society organisations including the newly formed Landless People’s
Movement. Through its formal agenda, the WSSD provided for the Johannesburg Metropolitan
Council to introduce the concept of ‘‘sustainability’’ into its housing strategy (see Syn-Consult
and City of Johannesburg, 2001). However, it was not adequately recognised in South Africa that
Agenda 21 and associated global declarations commit the signatory governments to ‘‘support the
shelter strategies of the urban poor’’ (UNCED, 1992). A common shelter strategy of the urban
poor in South Africa involves the informal occupation of land, followed by the construction of
temporary shelter, means of accessing basic services and legal campaigns against eviction. If given
the necessary support and protection of rights, these strategies would proceed, securing access to
credit and subsidies, undertaking spatial and infrastructural planning that would minimise the
need for relocation, constructing formal housing (multi-storey where necessary), and ensuring
formal access to infrastructure and social facilities. Instead in South Africa, multiple life-
threatening hazards are perpetuated through the ‘‘return to where you came from’’ (usually an
overcrowded back-yard shack) approach as in the case of the Bredell invasion in July 2001, and
the occasional ‘‘stay here (or move there) and wait for your capital subsidy house’’ transit camp
approach.
7. Conclusion
This paper does not suggest a solution to informal urban land occupations in South Africa. The
causes of this phenomenon as a whole must be recognised in the inequitable urban structure and
resulting land market, inadequate policy on urban land reform, unequal access to the urban
economy, and inadequate budgetary allocation to the government’s housing delivery programme.
These areas require active lobbying, for the problem to be tackled at its source. In the short term,
it is all the more important to promote improved conditions and formal integration or inclusion
for those having to resort to the informal occupation of land. This should start by an official
ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347 343
recognition of the actual problems experienced by residents of informal land occupations. Many
levels of exploitation mark this experience. By legally recognising first the lack of protection of
their rights, rather than only their contravention of property laws and land-use regulations,
mechanisms may be introduced to reduce exploitation by local residents, business people,
criminals, leaders, government officials and politicians, thereby protecting against the
infringement of basic constitutional rights and reducing vulnerability.
In order for South Africa to move beyond the technically driven and deterministic informal
settlement intervention paradigm that was mainstreamed through the policy of orderly
urbanisation in the 1980s, the issue of urban land invasions must be placed in the domain of
human rights. As a minimum, a rights-based approach should ensure that local and provincial
governments are obliged to consider the social and economic impact of their plans on people’s
lives. Pressure for such an approach must emanate from the public and from civil society
organisations. The recent media coverage of land invasions and evictions, which sympathised with
the plight of those resorting to informal residential arrangements, and raised alarm at the
intended tightening of policy and legislation by national government, has an important role to
play in raising public awareness. The urban NGOs in South Africa have not emphasised the need
for urban land reform beyond 1994 (unlike the rural NGO sector, which has focussed on unequal
land distribution), and appear reluctant to confront current government policy regarding housing.
Urban NGOs have yet to position themselves in relation to the politically sensitive reality of
informal urban land occupations.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the N-AERUS Workshop: ‘‘Coping with
informality and illegality in human settlements in South Africa,’’ Belgium, 23–26 May 2001.
Valuable comments were made by Geoff Budlender, Kirsty McLean and Ingrid Jacobsen, and
two anonymous referees. A shorter version of this paper titled: ‘Redefining the problem of
informal urban land occupation: from ‘‘contravention of laws’’ to ‘‘lack of rights’’’, was published
in the Annual Report 2000/2001 of the Johannesburg-based NGO Planact. However, the views
expressed are those of the author and not of any organisation.
References
Abt Associates. (2000). The impending catastrophe: A resource book on the emerging HIV/AIDS epidemic in South
Africa. Johannesburg: LoveLife Programme.
Awotona, A., Japha, D., Prinsloo, I., le Grange, L., Huchzermeyer, M., Boberg, D., & Briggs, M. (1995). Townships in
Cape Town: Case study area profiles. Working paper no. 9, ODA research scheme R6266, The integration
and urbanisation of existing townships in the Republic of South Africa, Department of Architecture, University
of Cape Town, and The Centre for Architectural Research in Development Overseas (CARDO), University of
New Castle.
Berner, E. (2000). Learning from informal markets: Innovative approaches to land and housing provision. Paper presented
at the ESF/N-AERUS and UNRISD workshop on Cities of the South: Sustainability for whom? Geneva, 3–6 May.
Bond, P. (1997). The housing question revisited. ‘Blacks like shacks’ says SA’s corporate liberal intelligentsia. Debate, 3,
89–117.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347344
Bond, P. (2000). Elite transition. From apartheid to neoliberalism in South Africa. Durban: University of Natal Press,
London: Pluto Press.
Budlender, G. (1990). Urban land issues in the 1980s: The view from Weilers’s Farm. In C. Murray, & C. O’Regan
(Eds.), No place to rest. Forced removals and the law in South Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cape Metropolitan Council. (2001). Analysis of PHDB subsidy applications in the Cape Metropolitan Area—March
2001. Cape Town: Department of Housing, Cape Metropolitan Council Administration.
Cooper, C., Schindler, J., McCaul, C., Brouard, P., Mareka, C., Seimon, J., Makowitz, M., Mashabela, H., &
Pickard-Cambridge, C. (1987). Race relations survey 1986 part 1. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race
Relations.
Davis, J. (1999). Judgement delivered on 17 December 1999 in High Court of South Africa (Cape of Good Hope Provincial
Division), in the matter between Irene Grootboom (and others) and the Oostenberg Municipality, Cape Metropolitan
Council, with respondents. The Premier of the Province of Western Cape, National Housing Board, Government of
the Republic of South Africa. Case no. 6826/99.
Department of Health. (2001). Ante natal survey November 2000. March, Pretoria.
Department of Housing. (1994). White paper: A new housing policy and strategy for South Africa. Government Gazette,
354(16178), Pretoria.
Dube, P., & Bulger, P. (2001). PAC rejects charges of opportunism over land grab. The Sunday Independent, 8 July, 2.
Financial Mail. (2000). Constitutional court: Watershed rights ruling in favour of the poor. Financial Mail, 13 October.
Fischer, F. (1993). Policy discourse and the politics of Washington think tanks. In F. Fischer, & J. Forester (Eds.), The
argumentative turn in policy analysis and planning. London: UCL Press.
Gauteng Department of Housing and Land Affairs. (1998). Department of Housing and Land Affairs—Annual report
‘97/98. Mail and Guardian, April 30–May 7.
Gilbert, L., & Walker, L. (2000). Treading the path of least resistance: HIV/AIDS and social inequalities—A South
African case study. Paper presented at the social science and medicine XVth international conference, The
Netherlands, 16–20 October, (also forthcoming in Social Science & Medicine).
Hands-On Productions. (2001). Ekulahlweni—The forgotten place (The Grootboom story). Documentary screened on
Special Assignment 1 May 2001 on SABC 3, Johannesburg: Hands-On Productions.
Hendler, P. (1999). Community based housing and formal programmed housing trends. Proceedings of the international
federation for housing and planning (IFHP) international conference: Urban integration, planning and housing in the
New South Africa, Cape Town, 14–16 February, pp. 134–144.
Hindson, D., & McCarthy, J. (1994). Defining and gauging the problem. In D. Hindson, & J. McCarthy (Eds.), Here to
stay: Informal settlements in KwaZulu-Natal. CSDS. University of Natal: Indicator Press.
Hollands, G. (2001). What should we do with ward committees? Local Government Transformer (Afesis Corplan), 7(3),
8–9.
Howe, G. (1982). Squatter crisis. Occasional paper no. 3, Cape Town: Centre for Intergroup Studies.
Huchzermeyer, M. (1996). Nyanga: Interviewing of residents and role players. Working paper no. 14, ODA research
scheme R6266, The Integration and Urbanisation of Existing Townships in the Republic of South Africa,
Department of Architecture, University of Cape Town, and the Centre for Architectural Research in Development
Overseas (CARDO), University of New Castle.
Huchzermeyer, M. (1997). Unpublished notes on a public meeting convened by SANCO. KTC Hall, KTC, Cape Town, 13
March.
Huchzermeyer, M. (1999a). Current informal settlement intervention in South Africa: Four case studies of people-driven
initiatives. Pretoria: Department of Sociology, University of Cape Town, and Division of Building Technology
(BOUTEK), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
Huchzermeyer, M. (1999b). The exploration of appropriate informal settlement intervention in South Africa:
Contributions from a comparison with Brazil. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Department of Sociology, University of
Cape Town.
Huchzermeyer, M. (2001a). Consent and contradiction: Scholarly responses to the capital subsidy model for informal
settlement intervention in South Africa. Urban Forum, 12(1), 71–106.
Huchzermeyer, M. (2001b). Housing for the poor? Negotiated housing policy in South Africa. Habitat International, 25,
303–331.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347 345
Huchzermeyer, M. (2001c). Legalising rights to occupied land: Impediments in the housing process at Weiler’s Farm,
Johannesburg. Trialog, 69, 6–11.
Huchzermeyer, M. (2002a). Informal settlements: Production and intervention in twentieth-century Brazil and South
Africa. Latin American Perspectives, 29(1), 83–105.
Huchzermeyer, M. (2002b). Unlawful occupation: Informal settlements and urban policy in South Africa and Brazil.
Trenton: Africa World Press/The Red Sea Press.
Huchzermeyer, M. (2003a). A legacy of control? The capital subsidy for housing, and informal settlement intervention
in South Africa. International Journal for urban and Regional Research, 27(3), in press.
Huchzermeyer, M. (2003b). Housing rights in South Africa: Invasions, evictions, the media, and the courts in the cases
of Grootboom, Alexandra, and Bredell. Urban Forum, 14(1), 80–107.
ka-Manzi. (2001). Stolen electricity claims at least 11 young lives in Cato Crest squatter camp. Mail and Guardian,
March 16–22.
Lalloo, K. (1999). Arenas of contested citizenship: Housing policy in South Africa. Habitat International, 23(1),
35–47.
Magnin, W. (1967). Latin American squatter settlements: A problem and a solution. Latin American Research Review,
2, 67–98.
Mbeki, T. (2001). The State of the Nation Address. National Assembly Chamber, Cape Town, 9 February, http://
www.gov.za/speeches/parl-mbeki2001.htm.
McCarthy, J., Hindson, D., & Oelofse, M. (1995). Evaluation of informal settlement upgrading and consolidation projects.
Report to the National Business Initiative, Johannesburg.
Mphafudi, L., Naidoo, S., & Lewis, S. (personal communication). March 2001, Pretoria: Department of Housing.
Mthembi-Mahanyele, S. (2001). Statement by the Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele at the special session of
the United Nations general assembly for an overall review and appraisal of the implementation of the habitat agenda.
New York, USA, 6 June, http://www.housing.gov.za/features/list/detail/default.asp?id=126.
Mvoko, V. (2001). State to outlaw land invasions. Move likely to face stiff opposition from PAC, land reform lobby
groups. Business Day, 15 August.
Ngobeni, E., & Deane, N. (2001). Bredell squatters challenge evictions. Mail and Guardian, 27 July–2 August.
Nhlapo, T. (2001). Alex residents moved to Diepsloot still without basic services. Mail and Guardian, 16–22 March, 10.
Nuttall, J. (1997). The first five years. The story of the independent development trust. Cape Town: Independent
Development Trust.
Orkin, F. (1998). The people of South Africa population census 1996, Census in brief. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa.
Rein, M., & Sch .on, D. (1993). Reframing policy discourse. In F. Fischer, & J. Forester (Eds.), The argumentative turn in
policy analysis and planning. London: UCL Press.
Republic of South Africa. (1996). The constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Act 108 of 1996.
Republic of South Africa. (2001). Housing Amendment Act No. 4 of 2001. Government Gazette, 432 (22388), No. 549,
July 15.
SABC3. (2000). Special assignment on Wallacedene and the Irene Grootboom case. Production in October, South African
Broadcasting Commission.
Scheepers, S. (2001a). Stop sale of RDP houses—By law. Housing in Southern Africa, April, 1.
Scheepers, S. (2001b). World first achieved—More than a million houses delivered. Housing in Southern Africa,
January, 1, 10.
Sithole, M. (2001). Trail of broken homes and promises in Alex: Shell-shocked residents say they were let down by their
local councillor. Sunday Independent, 18 February, 3.
Spadework Consortium. (2000). Greater Johannesburg metropolitan council housing strategy. Johannesburg, April.
Statistics South Africa. (2003). Census 2001—Census in brief. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa, http://www.statssa.gov.za.
Sunday Independent. (2001a). Alex removals suggest apartheid-style remedy. Sunday Independent, 18 February, 6.
Sunday Independent. (2001b). Disturbing echo in Alex removals. Sunday Independent, 18 Feburary, 6.
Syn-Consult and City of Johannesburg. (2001). Sustainable Housing Strategy for Johannesburg. Final Report for the
Department of Housing, City of Johannesburg, Johannesburg.
Thomas, E., & Crewe, M. (2000). Editorial. HIV/AIDS in South Africa: A crisis both of will and of leadership. Urban
Health and Development Bulletin, 3(2), 1–7.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347346
Thomas, L., & Howard, J. (1998). AIDS and development planning. In A. Whiteside (Ed.), Implications of AIDS for
demography and policy in Southern Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.
Tomlinson, M. (1996). From rejection to resignation: Beneficiaries’ views on the government’s housing subsidy scheme.
Research report no. 49, Social Policy Series, Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies.
Tomlinson, R. (2001). Housing policy in a context of HIV/AIDS and globalisation. International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research, 25(3), 649–657.
Turner, J. (1968). The squatter settlement: Architecture that works. Architectural Design, 38, 355–360.
UNCED. (1992). Agenda 21. United Nations conference on environment and development, http://www.infohabitat.
org/agenda21.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Huchzermeyer / Habitat International 28 (2004) 333–347 347