- The City is required to provide reasonable and emergency accommodation within seven days for displaced occupiers.
- Fire damaged bridge was found structurally unsafe, creating an immediate risk to life and limb.
- Judge criticises housing kits without land, says a home needs a place, not just materials.
Displaced by a fire that left the Tienie Meyer Bypass bridge in Bellville unsafe, dozens living beneath it must now be urgently housed by the City of Cape Town, which has seven days to provide emergency accommodation.
The ruling from the Western Cape High Court confirms that the families’ continued presence under the bridge posed an immediate and serious danger, not only to themselves but to passing motorists and surrounding infrastructure. The judge accepted expert evidence that the concrete structure had been compromised and that another fire or collapse could have catastrophic consequences.
At the centre of the case was Transnet SOC Ltd, which owns the marshalling yard beneath the bridge and sought urgent relief to remove the occupiers from land needed for freight operations and now deemed hazardous.
A structure no longer safe to occupy
The urgency stemmed from a professional engineer’s inspection conducted after a recent blaze beneath the bridge. The report described visible concrete spalling and delamination, warning that heat exposure had “potentially compromis[ed] the bridge’s overall structural integrity.”
The engineer recorded that “there are clear and visible signs of concrete spalling on the soffit of the bridge, which poses an immediate safety hazard,” and cautioned that reinforcement corrosion could follow if urgent repairs were not undertaken. Access to critical structural elements was blocked by informal dwellings, preventing proper assessment.
Most starkly, the report recommended the “immediate removal of the occupants under or adjacent to the damaged portions of the bridge to provide safe access and prevent further fire-related risks,” adding that the situation should be treated “with the highest level of urgency.”
The City itself did not dispute the danger. In its papers, it accepted that the occupiers’ continued presence presented “an immediate and demonstrable risk to life, limb and public safety.”
Procedure debated, safety decisive
Although the municipality raised concerns about whether the correct statutory route under the Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act had been followed, it did not oppose the removal in principle. The judge made it clear that technical arguments could not stand in the way of preventing potential injury or death.
“Urgent matters require rapid decision making,” the court said, noting that lengthy notice periods would “unduly delay and may defeat the object of preventing harm or even death.”
The court added that “the urgent removal of the occupiers has become non-negotiable,” emphasising that there was no realistic prospect of anyone being allowed to return to live under a structurally compromised bridge.
A home needs land, not just materials
Where the judgment becomes particularly pointed is in its treatment of the City’s housing response. The municipality argued that it faces overwhelming housing pressure and limited land. It offered emergency housing kits costing about R15 000 each, but said occupiers would need to find their own sites and assemble the structures themselves.
The judge rejected that approach in unusually direct language. “The idea that indigent South Africans … will simply be provided emergency housing kits … and be left to go and look for land, demonstrates how the City has no feeling of concern for the issue of land,” the judgment reads.
In a passage that cuts to the heart of the dispute, the court said, “there can be no ‘home’ without a place. Place is land. It is location,” before adding, “how the City can elevate and equate movable material to land … escapes my logic.”
The court found that the municipality had known for months that occupation under the bridge was unsafe and could not now claim that emergency arrangements were impossible.
The final order
The occupiers must vacate the specified portion of the property within 10 court days and are interdicted from re-entering or erecting structures there. The sheriff, assisted by police if necessary, may remove anyone who refuses to leave and clear incomplete structures.
Most significantly, the City must provide reasonable and emergency accommodation within seven days and must pay the costs of the application.
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