New Measures Needed? Tackling The Threat Of Unsafe Buildings

Rade moet genadeloos wees met die beperking van die besetting van onveilige geboue

Ek dink dit moet vreesaanjaend wees om soggens 04:00 wakker gemaak te word deur 'n donderslag wat die hele gebou laat sidder. Dan, in 'n verwarde toestand, besef jy jou bed skud nog en nee, dit was nie donderweer nie, dit was die gebou wat geval het. Paniek en vrees – terwyl jy uit die bed jaag, uit 'n gebou, uit in die strate. 'n Balkon het afgeval. . . op die sypaadjie verpletter, versper fragmente van klip, sement en bakstene jou pad en sny die kaalvoete waarop jy loop.

Só het minstens een inwoner van die Blougebou, langs die ou Junction-hotel in Soutrivier, Saterdagaand ervaar toe die gebou begin tuimel, verkrummel het. Swaar reën het dalk tot sy ineenstorting bygedra - wie weet.

Maar die owerhede het die gebou in elk geval veroordeel en was van plan om dit een of ander tyd te sloop. Die inwoners – diegene wat in die reëngeteisterde strate in Kaapstad se koue saamgedrom het – het die owerhede geïgnoreer. Almal geïgnoreer behalwe die voorsienigheid. En dit was net die voorsienigheid wat hulle beskerm het. Ten minste hierdie keer.

Die Blou Gebou is in 1899 gebou, langsaan die Junction Hotel in Junctionweg en het deur 'n gebrek aan instandhouding en eenvoudige oudag geleidelik agteruitgegaan totdat dit gereed was om te val. Te moeg vir die winde, die reën en die woestyn.

It’s just one of many Cape Town buildings that have been identified as being one of many unsafe buildings. And yet, people kept living there – as they are living in many similar unsafe buildings and abandoned buildings around the city and its suburbs.

Needless to say, the people who were living in the Blue Building had been without sewerage, electricity or water for months, but that didn’t seem to faze them. They just used the first floor as a toilet and a rubbish dump. Eyewitness reports say the first floor was about a meter deep in rubbish and human excrement mixed with the cold rain from a roof that leaked all the time. A dilapidated building and unsafe buildings on the point of collapse and people still living there.

Miskien is dit 'n ware maatstaf van hoe desperaat die behuisingstekort is. Mense is desperaat vir skuiling - enige skuiling, enige plek.

So wat is die antwoorde? Dit sal wonderlik wees om 'n towerstaf te swaai en vir elke Tom, Dick en Harry (en al hul neefs, ooms, tantes en ander hangers ook) 'n lekker nuwe blyplek te gee. Maar dit is die dinge van drome. En, in elk geval, wat doen “hulle” (en hul neefs, ooms en tantes) om hul eie behuisingsprobleme op te los?

Conscience stricken welfare workers will doubtless point to how South Africa’s is a heartless society that refuses to provide for its needy people. Maybe the welfare workers are right: maybe we are all heartless and uncaring. But I don’t think so. My concerns are based on a different premise. Anyone of those people in the Blue Building could have done something to keep their own place running or, if it had reached such an atrocious condition that it was irreparable, then they could at least have made sure that they, along with everyone else, evacuated the place before it fell down.

Maar hierdie mense – die inwoners wat ’n gevestigde belang het om deur die nag te oorleef – het net wil-wil voortgegaan om in ’n plek te woon wat onveilige geboue en ongeskik vir menslike bewoning is. Trouens, hulle het daartoe bygedra om dit ongeskik te hou vir enige soort bewoning deur hul eie ontlasting by die groeiende hoop op die eerste verdieping te voeg. Wat ons eintlik aantref, in die Blou Gebou, is 'n groep inwoners wat niks doen vir hulself, of vir die gemeenskap waarin hulle woon nie en alleen daarvoor is hulle skuldig. Voordat ons dus omdraai en 'n beskuldigende vinger of vyf wys na die "owerhede" omdat hulle nie opgetree het nie, of na die "ryk" mense van Constantia en Clifton omdat hulle hulle nie ondersteun het nie, oorweeg dit: die mense in die Blou Gebou het niks gedoen nie enigsins om hulself in die eerste plek te help.

Here’s an interesting conundrum: if (or when) the authorities intervene and insist that people move out of unsafe buildings that are too damaged to occupy, guess what happens? They (the people who evict the residents) are, most often saddled with finding “alternative accommodation” for them. We’ve seen exactly this scenario playing out in Schubart Park in Pretoria where, for more than a year now, the Tshwane Council has been trying to force people to leave unsafe buildings that can no longer be occupied. The residents demand that Tshwane provide alternative accommodation. So now the Tshwane Council has a problem: they say that it’s not their responsibility to find alternative accommodation, but the residents say it is. A deadlock with some derision.

En dit lyk asof die Grondwet by die inwoners skaar. My sienings – in hierdie omstandighede – is nie polities korrek nie, maar dan het ek nog altyd geglo dit is belangriker om 'n lewe te red as om polities korrek te wees. My uitgangspunt is gebaseer op 'n ervaring wat ek gehad het toe ek 'n jong man was en gekyk het hoe 'n vrou, wat van die branders op 'n Wildernisstrand gered is, mediese hulp geweier word omdat sy haar bikini-top in die branders verloor het en haar borste is ontbloot. Eerder as om 'n swart paramedikus die wit vrou wat besig was om te sterf en wie se borste ontbloot was te laat behandel, het die groep verkies om haar nie te behandel totdat 'n wit dokter opgedaag het nie. ’n Wit dokter het dit nooit gemaak nie – en ja, sy het gesterf oor iets so simpel.

Let’s get back to the problem of illegal occupation of derelict and unsafe buildings. I’m afraid that I’m on the side of the authorities and I believe it’s their responsibility to evict illegal tenants (using the notorious Red Ants if necessary) before a building falls down or is razed to the ground. If the residents – in any illegally occupied building – want alternative accommodation, I say let’s put them in those same tented refugee camps that we used to huis victims of xenophobic attacks last year. Let them get on with it from there. At least their lives should be safe – or as safe as they can be in our South Africa today. I reckon it’ll just take a few weeks before each one of those people has found somewhere else to live – without trying to force a council or a Department of Human Settlements to give them a huis or an apartment for nothing. At the moment we have an uncomfortable picture: the indigent are doing nothing to help themselves and the authorities are doing nothing to get them out of derelict buildings because if they do then the indigent become the council’s problem.

In our cities there are hundreds of unsafe buildings that have been condemned and yet the illegal occupancy continues unabated. Remember, just a few months ago, several people died when a condemned building caught fire in Johannesburg and the panic-stricken residents leapt to their death from the fifth floor windows. Showing a typical council response, Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management spokesman, Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, says the council doesn’t own the building so it’s the building owner’s responsibility to find somewhere else for these people to stay.

Wat hy eintlik sê is: “Moenie jou probleme my probleme maak nie” is hy nie? Of die gebou verlate is of nie, die owerhede moet aanspreeklik gehou word as hulle nie stappe doen om mense te dwing om onveilige geboue en veroordeelde plekke te verlaat nie. Die owerhede (die polisie dalk) moet hulle daar uit kry. Kaapstad – en al die ander rade ook – kan dus nie meer agter die “private eiendom”-verskoning bly skuil nie. Hulle het 'n verantwoordelikheid teenoor die mense van hierdie land om diegene wat in sub-menslike toestande woon uit te sit in geboue wat meestal van die oorspronklike eienaars gekaap is. Wanneer mense se lewens bedreig word, is onmiddellike optrede nodig en as die owerhede nie bereid is om op te tree nie, glo ek, is hulle skuldig wanneer 'n gebou stort ineen.

And if you think that Cape Town is an isolated case, then just wander through Hillbrow, Berea or Yeoville in Johannesburg. Or take a walk through the central city areas of Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban or Bloemfontein. You’ll find many more unsafe buildings and derelict buildings occupied by illegal residents who, in most cases, have stripped the gebou of everything that protects lives. Stripped it of the castiron sewerage pipes, the steel banisters for the stairs or the window frames that stop someone from tumbling off the seventh floor corridor in the rain. Get these people out of these unsafe buildings. Get them into tented camps. Get them anywhere where it is safe. And get them to understand that living in places like Schubart Park, or any other derelict unsafe buildings for that matter, is idiotic.

I wish somebody could get the residents to understand the perils of living in an unsafe building. I certainly can’t, but maybe you can.

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