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The third location in the City of Tshwane is the Woodlane Village, also known as Plastic View, located in one of the wealthiest suburbs in the east of the city.
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Woodlane Village is an informal settlement with more than 4,000 inhabitants, and flanked by a smaller informal settlement with a few hundred people, known as Cemetery View. These two settlements are right in the middle of the Moreletapark neighbourhood with its sprawling upmarket housing estates, golf villages, suburban shopping malls and private hospital.
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Woodlane Village is located on a small portion of a much larger portion of land (70 hectares), owned by local government.
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Widely contested in 13 court cases, there is now a development forum established, bringing together representatives from all the competing interests, to imagine a possible integrated and well-managed future, without displacement.
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We have been involved in this area over many years, rather informally, supporting the efforts of community leaders and community activists in seeking secure tenure for residents of the informal settlement.
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Currently, our engagement here is threefold:
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Firstly, we have been friends of the leaders of the informal settlement, being present and in solidarity with them, when it was required.
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Secondly, we regard this area as a classroom for study, action and reflection, but also to document – as urban witnesses – the unfolding process, from a legal, socio-economic, theological, urban planning, spatial and housing perspective.
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Thirdly, as a result of our relationship with the informal settlement leadership, and the rich opportunity this site offers for transformational urban development, we are more expressly involved in the sub-forum dealing with urban development, land and sanitation, tasked to facilitate a participatory processes considering the long term integration of this settlement into the suburb.”
