Land claim mired in mix-up
● When Cape Town was on the brink of Day Zero in March last year, Russell Dudley joined those fetching water from a spring in the well-to-do southern suburbs.
As well as quenching his thirst, this gave him an opportunity to visit the home his family lost when Newlands was declared a white neighbourhood in 1961.
Dudley, 60, has never given up on the idea of returning to his grandparents’ land. So he was shocked when he saw a notice on the fence of the property about an application to subdivide it, despite his family’s unresolved claim.
Dudley appealed to the City of Cape Town, which blocked the subdivision application this week, 58 years after his grandparents were forced to sell the land. But he says his dream of returning to Newlands has been hamstrung by an administrative bungle.
In 2017, the acting chief director for restitution, David Smit, gave Michael Stohr, son of the man who bought the property in 1961, permission to sell it.
In a letter at the time Smit said: “We confirm that as at the date of this letter no land claims appear on our database in respect of the erf … This includes the database for claims lodged by December 31 1998; and those lodged between July 1 2014 and July 28 2016.”
However, in November 1996 a claim had been lodged by Dudley’s father, Richard, whose movements were restricted by the apartheid government under the Suppression of Communism Act in the 1960s. The claim appeared twice in the Government Gazette.
Now, Dudley said, litigation is imminent against the new owner who bought the property from Stohr. It is registered in the name of a shelf company that does not appear on the database of the Companies & Intellectual Property Commission.
This week, the City of Cape Town’s planning appeals advisory panel turned down an appeal by the new owner against an earlier refusal of permission for subdivision.
Dudley told the city last year: “The current development application records 1857 as the first date title was registered, thus linking the Dudley family with the land and dwelling on it for longer than 150 years.
“As sole claimant I am seeking settlement by restitution. The current development application and transactions on this property negatively impact my rights to restitution.
“What is self-evident is that neither my late father as claimant, nor myself as his successor, have been well served in protecting our constitutional right to redress because of past racially discriminatory practices or laws.
“Transactions have been allowed on this property … and this stands to obstruct the process of the claim.”
The municipal planning tribunal refused to grant permission for the subdivision last year because, it said, the application did not comply with its land restitution policy as “the subdivision may render the restoration of the land impossible”.
The contested land is on a street that bears the dispossessed family’s name: Dudley Lane.
Dudley now lives in Elfindale, about 12km away, after his family was moved a second time from Claremont in 1973.
“Lawyer Wilfrid Cooper, who defended Dimitri Tsafendas, was my grandparents’ neighbour in the 1950s,” said Dudley. Tsafendas was the man who assassinated prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd in parliament in 1966.
“When my grandparents had to move out of the area, [Cooper’s] wife, Gertrude, started writing letters to the city saying that this was unacceptable.
“Eventually Dudley Lane, which was just an access to properties around the river, was named after my family.
“It has stayed as a monument of forced removals,” Dudley said.
“It was one of my father’s last wishes that the land be returned and this is what I am fighting for.”
Priya Reddy, a spokesperson for the city, confirmed that the appeals panel dealt with the matter this week. But she said the property owner had not yet been notified of the outcome.
“The minutes of the meeting will be finalised and submitted to the city’s technical and legal advisers … whereafter the appellant will be informed of the outcome,” said Reddy.
The city would not comment any further until this process was complete.
Lawyer Theon Smith, representing the new landowner, said: “I was only instructed yesterday to deal with the matter. I still have to find out if it has been rejected or not.”
The Land Claims Commission said it could not comment because Dudley’s application to the land claims court made the matter sub judice.