Cape Town Mayor Dan Plato wants President Cyril Ramaphosa to change the Disaster Management Act regulation preventing evictions, after the alleged illegal occupation of housing units in a complex managed by social housing organisation Communicare.

‘Disaster regulations currently limit the ability of courts to grant eviction orders. This will add to Communicare's challenge of dealing with the injustice of this building hijacking,’ said Plato, according to a News24 report.

‘I have called on President Ramaphosa to urgently change the regulations for the sake of the rule of law, the greater good of our communities, and development goals of our cities. Illegal occupations cannot be equated with activism, and cannot be condoned under any circumstances. All role players must actively discourage attempts to illegally occupy land. We owe this not only to ourselves as residents of a growing city, but also to future generations who will require land for schools, hospitals, housing, transport infrastructure and community facilities.’

Communicare alleges that its staff, security guards and tenants battled to prevent lawful tenants from being assaulted and to secure their property from alleged illegal occupation on Friday.

Megan Lennert, Communicare's stakeholder relations officer, said security guards were attacked with bottles, bins were burnt, doors to tenants' apartments were broken and cars were damaged by people trying to occupy vacant units.

The social housing company said that since 2 March, there had been attempts to illegally occupy its units at Goedehoop Rental Complex in Brooklyn, and the police did not take action to protect property or ‘recognised tenants’.

‘The police's failure to act has now resulted in escalating violence and 24 apartments in the complex are being occupied by the trespassers.’

She said the police's advice was to apply for an order under the Prevention of Illegal Eviction (PIE) Act.

Full News24 report