General dealer Maduramuthu Chetty lost about 2500m² of farmland near Chatsworth in 1979 under the Group Areas Act.
This week the High Court in Durban gave the Ethekwini municipality 30 days to give reasons why it had failed to transfer a site to Chetty, now 68, in compensation.
Chetty wants a commercial plot to develop his business interests. He was allocated a site in 1999, but the property has yet to be transferred to him.
According to the municipal website, the site is zoned a public area and earmarked to be preserved because of its vegetation.
Chetty said that the battle had cost him a fortune in legal fees.
In court papers, Chetty said that after the hearings of several housing tribunals and commissions, he was allocated a commercial site in Phoenix, north of Durban, in 1999.
He asked the provincial housing department to swap the Phoenix site with one in Chatsworth, south of Durban.
He was allocated a 3000m² piece of land in central Chatsworth - but was forced to begin legal action in 2001, when the property had still not been transferred to him.
''I find myself, 31 years later, after hundreds of letters, telephone calls, meetings, commissions and a court action, without any tangible form of relief," he said in his affidavit.
"I have no wish to engage in litigation but I am simply forced to do that because I have no alternative and matter is simply passed to and fro" between the municipality and the KwaZulu-Natal housing executive committee, Chetty said.
Ethekwini spokesman Mandla Nsele declined to comment.
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