Aproximación al concepto de derecho humano a un ambiente sano

Apart from using group interviews as a method of investigation, the study made use of household interviews. Household interviews were based on scheduled questionnaires. The questionnaires covered closed and open-ended questions. Prior to a field survey, questionnaires were pre-tested in KwaMachibise, a settlement similar to the ones chosen for research. The questionnaires were later modified to suit local conditions.

5.7.1 Representativeness o f the sample

The sample consists of landlords and non-landlords. Since the objective of the research is to investigate how the promotion of freehold tenure influenced the development of forms of landlordism, non-landlords were used as a control group. There were three reasons for using non-landlords as a control group:

• First, to understand the contributions of land tenure in the development of landlords, it is important to have non-landlords, to serve as a guide as to whether the components of land tenure, ownership and non-ownership of land, and informal land relations have the capacity to explain the rise in different forms of landlordism.

• Secondly, using non-landlords as a control group allows identification of other possible factors, both internal and external, that may explain the link between informal land relations and the development of landlordsim.

• Finally, to ensure that low-income housing policies serve not only the needs of low-income landlords, policy implementers should also be aware of differences between settlements that characterise non-landlords, which might call for specific policies addressing their needs.

There are four constraints that related to undertaking surveys in South African urban low-income settlements, and low-income landlords in particular.

• First, a lack of reliable secondary data.

• Secondly, the lack of studies on low-income landlords has made it impossible to compare data. In cases where information is vailable it is either outdated or covers the whole city and, therefore, is not desegregated according to settlements.

• The third problem is related to the administration of freehold settlements. Changes in administrative bodies from the Native Administration Department between 1912 and the 1940s, through the Local Health Commissions from 1960-1970, to the Department of Development Aid from the early 1970s until 1992, has meant that the administration of these settlements did not fall within the jurisdiction of the

Pietermaritzburg municipality. Thus information available at the municipal level is often not applicable to these settlements.

• Finally, the lack o f local government structures in these urban settlements has aggravated the problem.

It was first assumed that the list of homeowners could be accessed through other means such as the ratepayers roll. However, this created problems. N ot all of the settlements studied had a ratepayers roll. In Winterveld, landowners have never paid for rates, hence no such list existed. In St Wendollins, the ratepayers’ list reflected landowners with freehold title deeds. It excluded homeowners who had never purchased land but had been allowed by the church, which was the landowner, to stay. It also exclude those residents who had purchased land but had not been issued with title deeds. When St Wendollins was proclaimed an indian and coloured residential area in the early 1970s, the church pulled out as the administrator of the settlement, and most properties were sold to Indians and coloureds. With the de-proclamation of St Wendollins in 1985, some properties are still registered in the names of Indians and coloureds. Neither the ratepayers’ roll nor the list o f owners could offer reliable information for choosing a representative sample of landlords.

Landowners in W interveld can easily be distinguished from tenants by their houses, which are numbered. Houses are usually built of concrete blocks and some with bricks while tenants’ houses were built of mud. Although landowners of St Wendollins could easily be identified from their large stands and permanent structures, the mere consideration of houses’ physical features was sometimes misleading. A considerable number of householders had houses similar to those of landowners, yet they did not own land. Low-income householders who did not own land in Caluza had built houses with mud, and some had used cement to plaster their houses. However, this was not always the rule. There were cases, though very few, of landowners with mud houses and there were non-landowners who lived in brick houses.

The researcher relied on the list compiled during the group interviews. This was complemented by secondary data on registered landowners, the list of landlords

acquired from the Landowners Association, archival material from Marianhill Mission the Natal Land Commission, land registration offices, newspapers and information from estate agents and governing bodies involved with particular settlements.

The sample consists of 216 landlords. The distribution of settlements is as follows. Winterveld is the largest settlement of the three. It has as a population of 189 000 (Ngomane, 1991), of which 90% are estimated to be tenants (Horn et al, 1992). There are 1 348 registered landowners. Because of the large size of the settlement it was impossible to survey the whole area and only a small section, called Stakaneng, was chosen. This would allow fair comparison with other settlements. Stakaneng was chosen because of its location and manageable size. It is densely populated and the main road separates Stakaneng from Mabopane, a formal public township. Stakeneng’s location was regarded as an important factor in explaining the development of landlordism and informal land relations. The pilot study revealed that there were 85 landlords. An effort was made to visit all landlords. Out of this total only 75 could be interviewed (88%). Landlords who did not live in the settlement and whose whereabouts were unknown were not considered. The survey took place on weekdays, as well as during the weekends and the evenings.

In Caluza, there are 402 sites. Ninety-two landlords were identified. Out of this total 66 (72%) were interviewed. There are 1 126 houses in St Wendollins. The pilot study revealed that there are 82 landlords. Out of this total, 75 landlords were interviewed (92%). All landlords who could be found were interviewed. However, those whose whereabouts were unknown to tenants, lived in another province, lived outside the settlement, had died or could not be found after three visits, were excluded.