District Six is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. Over 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime.
The area was named in 1867 as the Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town. The area began to grow after the freeing of the enslaved in 1833. By the turn of the century it was already a lively community made up of former slaves, artisans, merchants and other immigrants, as well as many Malay people brought to South Africa by the Dutch East India Company during its administration of the Cape Colony. It was home to almost a tenth of the city of Cape Town's population, which numbered over 1,700–1,900 families.
After World War 2 , during the earlier part of the Apartheid Era, District Six was relatively cosmopolitan. Situated within sight of the docks, it was made up largely of coloured residents which included a substantial number of coloured Muslims, called Cape Malays. There were also a number of black Xhosa residents and a smaller number of Afrikaners, English-speaking whites, and Indians. In the 1960/70's large slum areas were demolished as part of the apartheid movement which the Cape Town municipality at the time had written into law by way of the Group Areas Act (1950). This however did not come into enforcement until 1966 when District Six was declared a 'whites only' area, the year demolition began.
By 1982, more than 60,000 people had been relocated to a Cape Flats township complex roughly 25 kilometres away. The old houses were bulldozed. The only buildings left standing were places of worship. International and local pressure made redevelopment difficult for the government, however. The Cape Technikon (now Cape Peninsula University of Technology) was built on a portion of District Six which the government renamed Zonnebloem. Apart from this and some police housing units, the area was left undeveloped.
By 2003, work had started on the first new buildings: 24 houses that would belong to residents over 80 years of age. On 11 February 2004, exactly 38 years after the area was rezoned by the government, former president Nelson Mandela handed the keys to the first returning residents, Ebrahim Murat (87) and Dan Ndzabela (82). About 1,600 families were scheduled to return over the next three years.
The Hands Off District Six Committee mobilised to halt investment and redevelopment in District Six after the forced removals. It developed into the District Six Beneficiary Trust, which was empowered to manage the process by which claimants were to reclaim their "land" back. In November 2006, the trust broke off negotiations with the Cape Town Municipality. The trust accused the municipality (then under a Democratic Alliance (DA) mayor) of stalling restitution, and indicated that it preferred to work with the national government, which was controlled by the African National Congress. [wikipedia]
Delta BEC was appointed as project managers and as principle consultants to manage the design process, the public bidding process and the construction process including the quality assurance of the construction works.
The project was a team effort from national government, provincial government the City of Cape Town and the District Six community, so integrated stakeholder consultation was a critical part of particularly the design process.
This was the third project that had been identified and implemented and future phases were being planned with lessons learned from previous phases informing the upcoming phases.
It was a considerable honour to be given the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of families that had suffered such pain for such an extended period of time. It was also a major challenge since the restitution process had been so so fraught with delays, challenges and mistrust before my involvement. I had to ensure that the project team managed the project and communicated with integrity so as to minimise the risk of the project falling apart due to political mistrust.
Unfortunately the first construction company was unable to complete the project due to financial difficulties and their contract was cancelled and new bid documents prepared for a new construction company.
My thanks goes to all project stakeholders for their commitment and hard work throughout the project to see it through to a successful conclusion.