Cape Town evicts tenants of problem building

Scores of residents, mostly foreign nationals, have been evicted from an inner-city Cape Town building that had become a drug den used by prostitutes.

Senator Park, one of 200 properties declared problem buildings by the city, is a seven-storey building in the same street as the Cape Town High Court.

City councillor JP Smith, who watched tenants leave, said the city worked with Senator Park owners for more than a year to rid them of troublesome residents.

In a last-ditch bid to stay, residents flooded the first floor and locked themselves in.

Security guards were sent in to get them to pack up.

"These are not just harmless people trying to survive in their adopted country," said Smith.

"What you've got here are nasty criminals and hostile elements, who have made life impossible for everybody around them.

"People have been pushed out of the windows. You have criminal activity. People living within that building would go away for a few days and come back to find their flat had been broken open and somebody else was living in it."

Property manager Leonard Lowings insisted the tenants had left voluntarily.

"The outcry of the media, the stories that you guys have been writing in the media labelling the building a drug den, that's what prompted the action.

"We had to appease the city. The city declared us a problem building. The owners also wanted the building sorted out and resolved," said Lowings.

Smith said he was not aware of any similar by-laws elsewhere in the country, but said he had been asked by other municipalities, including the City of Johannesburg, to make presentations on the legislation.

He said a property was declared a problem building when ongoing criminal activity, over-crowding and dereliction, was reported.

"The building is now in a state of dereliction. It's rapidly moving towards not being structurally sound. It is certainly causing environmental health problems.

"It has seen crime, including selling of stolen goods, drugs, kidnapping, murder, people being pushed out of windows and extensive drug dealing from the foyer, and massive over-crowding," said Smith.