Page 18 - KBHA Bulletin 10

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This report reveals an attitude that was prevalent in some quarters in regard to
implementing residential segregation in Kalk Bay long before the promulgation of the

Group Areas Act in the 1950s. And even though only 15% of the 40 buildings at “Die
Land” had been declared slums the City Engineer was generalising this condition to the

whole area and invoking the Slums Act to achieve clearance of both the buildings and the

inhabitants. This approach was not unique to Kalk Bay.

The City Engineer’s idea of using the municipal land on The Point to re-house the
fishermen was soon blocked by the Department of Public Works who restated a long-held

desire to acquire it for unidentified government purposes related to harbour activities. In the
absence of any suitable alternative site the City Engineer was obliged to recommend that

the community be left undisturbed for the time being, but that the nuisances on the six

declared properties be removed – but this would involve the dis-housing of about seven
families numbering some 35 people.

During the next eighteen months the various parties involved in the matter clarified their
positions, while a number of initiatives were launched to deal with the provision of low-

income housing for the Kalk Bay fishermen. Among Council officials the MOH, reflecting
on the fact that over one thousand people on the Peninsula had already been rendered

homeless by the application of the Act, was adamant that no-one in Kalk Bay should be dis-
housed through slum declarations, unless alternative housing was available to them. He

called for an urgent housing programme to meet the shortfall of 8000 working class

dwellings, in addition to slum demolitions, on the Peninsula. The City Engineer was of the
view that “Die Land” was valuable real estate that should be made available for private re-

development, with the fishermen being re-housed in a fishermen’s village comprising
cottage-type dwellings on the extensive municipal lands in the vicinity of Steenberg

Station. Opposition from the fishermen led him to abandon this idea for a while. He was
also of the opinion that the Kalk Bay fishermen’s housing problem was part of a wider one

that was common to all the fishing communities on the False Bay coast, and that this could