The handover of title deeds to land claimants in Simon's Town has been described by Western Cape Land Claims Commissioner Beverly Jansen as one of the most significant acts of restitution yet.
Jansen said she hoped the restitution would serve as a springboard for changing property ownership patterns in the region.
"The successful claims of the Erispie, Aziz, Jackson, Kindo and Wessels families and the Waterfall Road Claimants Voluntary Association has signalled a new day for Simon's Town.
"It is a most significant development because Simon's Town property is mostly owned by foreigners and a few white South Africans. There are no black or coloured people who have title deed there.
"With this claim, hopefully, will come the changing of property ownership patterns in the area," Jansen said.
In terms of the finalised claim the Erispie family received 1 260m², the Aziz family two plots of 543m² and 800m², the Jackson family an erf of 792m², the Kindo family an erf of 337m², and the Wessels family two erfs - of 1 567m² and 372m².
The Waterfall Road Claimants Voluntary Association was presented with the deed to an erf of 1 958m².
The claimants are families who were forcibly removed from the area about 30 years ago as part of the previous government's Group Areas Act.
The finalisation of the claims on Monday followed another emotional ceremony on Sunday where 123 claimants received monetary compensation for their forced relocation from the Constantia area.
Jansen said 33 families representing 123 co-claimants had received money. A total 118 claimants who had been tenants at the time of their removal received R25 580 each and five claimants who had owned land were compensated between R40 000 and R360 000, depending on the size of their properties.
The Land Claims Commission is completing another 54 claims involving approximately 1 000 claimants, who have opted for land.
In respect of these claims, the commission said in a statement, "there is proof that some of their forebears resided in the area, since the 1700s".
"For this reason," said Jansen, "we are awaiting the audit of the land by the department of public works, so that as early as March these people will be allocated land."
One of the claimants holding out for land is Grassy Park resident Christiaan William Pietersen who told the Cape Argus he was uprooted from the area 40 years ago.
He said he had a distinct memory of two white men coming to his father's farm in 1932, when he was four years old.
"I remember these white men having a conversation and speaking about the fact that we won't be able to live in Constantia for too much longer.
"For the next 32 years I lived under a cloud, because when I was 36 we received the notice that we had to move," he recounted.
Pietersen said that just before Nelson Mandela was released from prison, he heard that coloured people would once again be allowed to return, and immediately started the process.
With the help of his attorney, Essa Moosa, and Canadian and New Zealand researchers, he began to engage the authorities.
He said he could not wait to get back to Constantia, so that he could once again farm the land. "I was a farmer till the age of 36 and would really like to get back to farming, like my forebears had done in the area, all the way back to the 18th century."