The Port Elizabeth Land and Community Restoration Association project in Fairview

• Main Author: Jekwa, Mandisi
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University 2017
• Subjects: Land reform > South Africa > Port Elizabeth; Urban renewal > South Africa > Port Elizabeth; City planning > South Africa > Port Elizabeth; Community development > South Africa > Port Elizabeth
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/17712

The purpose of the research is to assess how the Port Elizabeth Land and Community Restoration project has been perceived by the beneficiaries with regard to spatial transformation.The study is about land restitution programme in Port Elizabeth; with specific emphasis on those land claims which were lodged through a community based organization called Port Elizabeth Land and Community Restoration Association (PELCRA) for the restitution of Fairview, South End, Salisbury Park and Korsten. Such land claims were subsequently part of the PELCRA project for the restitution of Fairview. The study looks specifically at claimants who were dispossessed of their land rights as a result of the implementation of Group Areas Act in the 1960s. The claimants were forcefully removed from Fairview, Korsten, South End and Salisbury Park to their respective race group areas, such as Bloemendal for coloureds, Malabar for Indians and Kwa-Zakhele for Africans.However, before the general objectives of the study could be discussed, it is important to provide a brief historical context that brought about racial segregation in the South African urban setting, and how the post-apartheid government sought to re-integrate, restructure the towns and cities, as well as healing the boundaries set by racial zoning through land reform. This will then followed by the discussion on how the various communities of Port Elizabeth responded to the introduction of the Land Restitution Act 22 of 1994. The post-apartheid government in South Africa faces serious challenges in undoing the legacy of apartheid. One such product of apartheid system is the ‘apartheid city’. It stands out as an extreme example of social engineering. According to Freund (2001, 537) urban segregation was pervasive across the colonial world, some other cities in colonial and even post-colonial Africa were subject to massive forced removals or urbanisation that were comparable to South Africa under the apartheid regime. Urban segregation is therefore not unique to South Africa. It has to be said though that the South African apartheid city was distinctive in a number of ways.