Residents offended by agent’s advert
Backlash at agency promoting gentrification in Woodstock
APROPERTY advertisement promoting the delights of gentrification in Woodstock has touched a nerve among those fighting to stop the eviction of low-income families in the area. The Chas Everitt advertisement was placed in a newspaper last year by an agent who no longer works for the company.
It features a picture of the property, and the following writing: “Join the global trend of gentrification in lower Woodstock and become part of the designer society!
“Heritage listed Victorian home graciously upgraded and waiting… ”
Social justice group Reclaim the City shared a picture of the advert on Facebook earlier this week.
“It’s time predatory real estate agents like Chas Everitt and others were held accountable for the injustice they are serving up,” the group wrote.
Reclaim the City supporter Emile Engel, who is also head organiser for urban land justice group Ndifuna Ukwazi, said it was “horrible” to read the carelessness with which the ad supported gentrification.
“The problem is the disregard for what gentrification is doing to working class and poor families. The idea that it is advertised without any consideration for the damaging effect is a smack in the face of the suffering that people are experiencing.”
He said while property developers and prospective buyers may experience gentrification as an exciting real estate opportunity, for those people who are pushed out of their homes and areas, it was devastating.
“For more than 10 years now there has been a situation where property prices have been increasing and people who used to have security of tenure all of a sudden found themselves at risk of being homeless.
“They were routinely just being evicted, many times unlawfully. People are being intimidated and threatened,” Engel said.
Chas Everitt responded to the criticism levelled at them through social media.
Chief executive Berry Everitt said the agent had been naive in her wording of the ad: “That ad was placed a year ago and at the time it was placed by one of our agents who is now teaching overseas so she’s unable to give us comment. Since a year ago, the meaning of that word, I believe, has got two different meanings.”
He echoed the apology on the company’s Facebook page: “From our perspective we would like to apologise for offending people, it was never intentioned. We don’t promote gentrification. I think the agent was a little naive in how she worded it and her understanding of the effect that it can have on lower-income people. We’ve got a lot of empathy with that.”
Engel said property developers needed to consider the damage of their projects.
“The responsible thing for property developers to do is to think about how development can be done without forcibly removing people to the outskirts of the city.
Reclaim the City laid down a public challenge to Chas Everitt: “Acknowledging and apologising for your complicity in a trend which displaces poor families from Woodstock. Check. Letting that introspection to translate into more responsible dealings as a middleman in the city’s most cruel and contested property market. Well, the jury is still out. Please prove us wrong.”