An ownership tussle over a massive chunk of military land near the centre of Cape Town has exposed a conundrum at the heart of land reform: before you consider expropriation you need to know who you're expropriating from.
That's the challenge facing several willing buyers and sellers of the 225ha Wingfield military base, who are grappling with a historical jigsaw puzzle dating back nearly a century.
Efforts to secure the site for city housing development have been stonewalled by the Department of Defence for several years. At one stage, the department offered the land to the city but at a "prohibitive" price.However, it has since emerged that the department has the right to use Wingfield only for military purposes, failing which ownership would revert to a private trust.
There are also suggestions of possible expropriation should the trust refuse to sell at an affordable price.
The Graaffs Trust, set up by former Cape Town mayor and business tycoon Sir David Pieter De Villiers Graaff, confirmed this week it had a claim to Wingfield by virtue of a sale agreement.
"Wingfield was sold to the government during World War 2 on the basis that once the war was over and [the land was] no longer required for military purposes, the land would revert to the owner," said trust director Brett Moore.
STANCE UNCLEAR
"No decisions have been made as to what would be done with this land should it no longer be used ... as intended," he said, adding that the government's stance on expropriation without compensation was still unclear.
"I think it is far too early to speculate on what might happen as regards expropriation and under what conditions expropriation without compensation will be justified," Moore said.
Western Cape premier Helen Zille confirmed that the possible sale of Wingfield was raised with the military during her tenure as Cape Town mayor.
"The amount of money the department [of defence] requested as compensation for moving the military base off Wingfield was prohibitive," Zille said.
"We need national government to release these spaces in a way that they can be affordably developed for cross-subsidised affordable housing."
The base, much of it unused, adjoins one of the city's two main development nodes, along Voortrekker Road.It has long been the envy of government and civil society stakeholders in housing development due to its central location and potential for "integrative housing" - an attempt to reverse apartheid-era spatial planning that dumped poor people on the periphery of major cities.
Frustration at the stalled land initiative turned to hope when possible state land disposals were raised in President Cyril Ramaphosa's state of the nation address and Zille's late state of the province speech.
Whereas Ramaphosa spoke of the need to use property sales to plug the budget deficit, Zille called for some state properties to be released for housing.
Zille said this week she hoped the Graaffs Trust would help the state fulfil its housing objectives, "especially in the light of the lack of imminent threat to our country and the pressing need we have for land for affordable housing".
Defence force spokesman Siphiwe Dlamini said he had been made aware of the Graaffs Trust connection to Wingfield. "I was a bit surprised myself," he said, adding that any decision on the sale of the land was likely to be a lengthy process.
Wingfield serves as an air force base and technical training school for the navy. Part of the original property was released by the trust for the development of the Acacia Park residential estate for MPs.
Graaff and his brother founded Graaffs Trust "to administer the diverse interests of the Graaff family", the trust says on its website.
Graaff had so many business interests he was once referred to as "The Octopus".
Civil society experts backed the city's efforts to obtain Wingfield, which could accommodate tens of thousands of homes.
"There is no doubt that if it was possible to get underused pieces of military land it would make a big difference and ease some of the problems," said Malcolm McCarthy, general manager of the National Association of Social Housing Organisations.
He said national departments and other municipalities could learn from Cape Town's model of subsidising development to provide affordable housing in convenient locations.FIRST TIME IN SOUTH AFRICA
"If what is being planned comes to fruition then I think it will be the first time in South Africa that we've truly started creating [accommodation] opportunities for moderate- to low-income people in areas where there is very high land value.
"People in Durban and Joburg are looking at this," McCarthy said.
Wingfield could be a test case for expropriation without compensation should the landowner prove "obstinate" about future land use.
"I think it would be a very interesting case, but the first prize would be to negotiate something between the defence force and the trust and see the land released on that basis," McCarthy said.
WHO OWNS MOST OF THE LAND?
Graaffs Trust is one of South Africa’s biggest landowners. Sir David Pieter De Villiers Graaff and his brother helped finance De Villiers Graaff High School in Villiersdorp. Graaff was also directly involved in building the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway and served as a minister in the Cape Colony’s last cabinet and the first cabinet of the Union of South Africa. He was said to be close to General Jan Smuts and Winston Churchill...