Schubart Park eviction interdict dismissed

An urgent interdict to prevent the Tshwane Metro municipality from evicting residents of the troubled Schubart Park flats in central Pretoria was dismissed last night.

"The appropriate relief cannot be an order to allow these people to go back into life threatening circumstances," Judge Bill Prinsloo found in the High Court in Pretoria.

"The fact is that the people were not evicted, they were evacuated for their own safety."

Prinsloo ordered that the municipality and the Schubart Park residents' association to draft an order on how the residents could be accommodated in the suburb of Saulsville and when they could return to their homes pending renovations to the buildings.

They would have to provide the court with the draft by 3pm on Friday.

Prinsloo said he accepted that there needed to be due processes for the eviction to take place, but he considered the court interdict sufficient considering the circumstances.

Earlier, the City of Tshwane said some residents of Schubart Park were due to be relocated to Saulsville because the buildings had been declared unsafe.

In a statement released by the city, it said 172 households had agreed to be moved.

The city had intended doing the relocation some time on Thursday afternoon.

Hundreds of Saulsville residents staged a protest on Thursday night against the planned relocation to their suburb, west of Pretoria, Gauteng police said.

Captain Pinky Tsinyane said many of the residents had dispersed on their own and there was no need for police action but they would continue to monitor the situation.

A group of Schubart Park residents protested on Wednesday, saying they had had no water or electricity for two weeks.

Tyres were burnt inside the building, residents threw bricks and bottles onto the streets and a mobile toilet and car parked outside the flats were also set alight.

About 5000 residents spent Wednesday night on the streets after police "evicted" them, community leader Mashao Chauke said on Thursday morning.

"Basically , we all slept outside after we were evicted. Only [some] women, children and disabled were accommodated at [a nearby] church."

Police arrested 79 people for public violence during the protests.

He said the building was habitable, even though there was no water and electricity.

In July 2008, four adults and a toddler died in a fire at the neighbouring Kruger Park flats. The blaze was started in protest against evictions from Schubart Park by a private security company.

In November 2008, the municipality announced it would renovate the block of flats, as they were a health hazard.