Page 104 - KBHA BULLETIN 4
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difficult to establish the exact truth-value of such stories, it illustrates the feelings of
powerlessness experienced as fishing families were gradually forced to seek accommodation
elsewhere.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, most of the fishing families were crowded
together in the area known as Die Land, where the Fishermen’s Flats stand today. Lack of
proper sanitation facilities and a general neglect by the Municipality resulted in a
deterioration of the area, and in the 1930s a number of buildings in Harbour Road were
declared slums by the Council. The City Engineer at the time, Mr W. S. Lunn, was of the
opinion that the fishermen should be re-housed outside of Kalk Bay, and recommended the
Council to move them to an area near Steenberg. The members of the Housing and Slum
Clearance Committee, however, after consulting with the public, did not agree with his
suggestion, and pointed to the “length of time that the fishermen have been established at
KB” and “the fact that they are very strongly opposed to being moved” as reasons for why
they should be allowed to stay.
After intense negotiations and protests by the fishermen, the decision was finally taken in
1938 that new buildings should be erected on the spot where the fishermen lived in Kalk Bay.
(The Cape Argus, 17 June 1937; State Archives 3 / CT Vol: A4 4 / 15). Part of the ground
was made available to the project by the Fishermen’s Union, and another portion by the City
Council. All but one of the original cottages were demolished, and in their place the
fishermen’s fifty-four flats were built. The surviving cottage can be seen near the corner of
Hare and Clairvaux roads. (Figs. 5.1 & 5.2.) A lesser known aspect of the building of the flats
is that a section of the land required for the flats was taken up by a Moslem burial ground.
The involved parties agreed to use this land for the new development, and the bodies were
taken up and reburied in Muizenberg.
In this way the fishing community managed to resist the first wave of threats to have them
removed from Kalk Bay. In 1950, after the government introduced the first of the Group
Areas Acts, a new period of uncertainty began.
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