J. H. Sobantu (who in the 1930s was "an emerging member of Southern Rhodesia's Westernized African elite"),[1] was one of the chairmen of the residents' association.
[2] Its founding was the result of the boom in the Zimbabwe economy of the early 1950s, when the number of jobs as well as wages increased, a development from which Zimbabwe's black residents profited as well; moreover, labor unrests of the late 1940s showed the need for a more stable social situation.
Bulawayo, while opposing black landownership, "grudgingly introduced an African Home Ownership Scheme on a thirty-year leasehold basis".
[4] The land on which Pelandaba (and the similar suburb Pumula) was built was leased from the city.
The suburb proved successful enough in attracting the African elite (including such notables as Joshua Nkomo), and became "the trendiest black community in Bulawayo"; by 1957 its houses rivaled those of expensive white neighborhoods.