A year after the Knysna fires, the town is slowly rebuilding – but the worst-hit residents, a swathe of uninsured or under-insured lower middle-class folk, seem to be in dire straits.
Figures are hard to come by but anecdotal evidence from old Knysna hands is that many of these fire victims may have left town and those who have stayed are struggling despite help from donation distribution agencies.
The group, ranging from elderly couples to young families who moved to Knysna for the healthy lifestyle, formed a social cornerstone of the town, and the problems they were now facing pointed to a wider malaise, Knysna Ratepayers’ Association member Sam Lurie said.
“I think part of the problem was government was slow to recognise the main victims. They were working people or retired working people with bills to pay,” he said.

“They weren’t living in RDP houses – but their homes were destroyed and they were not insured properly because they were struggling to make ends meet.”
The municipality channelled its aid towards families earning below R3 500 whose homes had been burned down in White Location. But ironically, while the fire destroyed 198 RDP homes and shacks there, 973 houses were destroyed or damaged in suburbs like Knysna Heights, Brenton, Belvedere and more.
Probably the worst hit was Knysna Heights but only a fraction of the 263 razed homes there was being rebuilt, Lurie said.
“It looks busy when a building team is working on a property, perhaps one in 20, but all those other gutted homes are just standing there.”
After the development of Thesen Island was granted in 1998, the island became like a railway station for eight years as throngs of builders erected 600 houses, she recalled.“So if you think how many houses burnt down in Knysna last year the activity would be far greater if a big rebuild was happening.”
The municipality had offered a property rates holiday to those who did not fall under the R3 500 income bracket, but this had boomeranged, she said.
“To allow for the rates holiday, stands were declared vacant – but this attracted higher electricity and water tariffs. So fire victims ended up paying more overall. The municipality should simply have written off all rates and tariffs for these people.”
Round Table Knysna 59 former chairman Peter Bester, a well-known estate agent in town who helped coordinate the donations distributions centre at Loerie Park, said of the 900-odd suburban homes that had been destroyed, only 30 to 40 had been completely rebuilt.
He said only some 48% of the people whose homes were razed were properly insured. Unable to afford skyrocketing building and rental costs, many of these people had cut their losses and relocated to cheaper neighbouring towns like Sedgefield.
The municipality could make a huge positive intervention in this regard by developing affordable housing for these people, he said.
Speaking to Weekend Post last month before she was ousted from her post on Wednesday night, Knysna mayor Eleanor Bouwer-Spies said the municipality had tried to help needy residents who did not fall under the rebuild ceiling via the rates rebate.
“We have spent between R6- and R7-million in that regard over the past year,” she said.
On affordable housing, she said a gap project was under way. It was not at a stage where details about it could be released, however.
She said the municipality was also evaluating the possibility of transforming some of its existing properties for affordable housing...