The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) has laid a charge at the Khayelitsha police station against Cape Town mayor Dan Plato, party member Xolisa Hlwempu said on Monday.

"We have opened a case in Khayelitsha for Dan Plato to be arrested," he said.

"We will be briefing the media on when the mayor will be arrested so that they can be there to see it."

ANCYL spokesperson in the Dullah Omar region, Chumile Sali, said that a case had been opened against the mayor on charges of malicious damage to property and incitement of violence.

Rulleska Singh, spokesperson for Plato, said that the mayor's office had heard about the charges through the media.

When the police started investigating, they would speak to the mayor himself, she said.

This came after members of the ANCYL two weeks ago demolished tin-and-wood structures the city was putting up around toilets to give people privacy, demanding brick and mortar instead. The council last week removed the toilets altogether, a move followed by violent protests in which 32 people were arrested.

Plato last week called on Makhaza residents in Khayelitsha to burn tyres and protest against the ANCYL "hooligans" and "thugs" who destroyed the toilet enclosures.

"I want to throw it back at the community... that you need to tell those rude hooligans, those thugs, that you must march and burn tyres against those hooligans," Plato told a press conference at the time.

"What is happening now is that the Youth League is taking decisions on the part of the community without the community having any say in it."

On Monday morning, the SABC reported that lawyers representing residents of Makhaza had given Western Cape Premier, Helen Zille, until the afternoon to respond to their demands that the toilets be rebuilt and enclosed with brick and mortar structures.

Zille's spokesperson Tracey Venter said that the letter was faxed to the Premier Office late on Friday afternoon and so they had only seen it on Monday morning.

Legal advisors were going through the letter but she was unsure of whether they would respond to it by the afternoon.

The Human Rights Commission had found that the City had violated the rights of residents by not supplying them with properly enclosed toilets.

In 2007, the Democratic Alliance-led council began building a toilet for each household in the area, on condition residents enclosed the toilets themselves so the council would have money for more toilets.