Progress reported on Currie Road government buildings

THERE has been further progress with plans to transform the derelict and vacant property at 230 Currie Road, Berea into a government department.

Formerly owned by the Department of Public Works, the property has been a sore spot for surrounding residents for some time.

On a recent visit to the neighbouring property, Arbor Glade, residents spoke to Berea Mail stating that although the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development had taken over management of the property in August 2018, with the intention to use the property to house the eThekwini District Office from this site, the grounds were still in the same “unhygienic and disgusting state,” home to rodents and vagrants and a health hazard to tax paying citizens.

“Our main concern is the vagrants living in the derelict buildings which we have reported on many occasions. To date no action has been taken. Our complex is being subjected to these vagrants whose numbers have increased and are causing a nuisance to our owners. Every evening they light huge fires which is a great risk to our buildings and there are also no ablution facilities on the property. The buildings on the land have been stripped, including roofing and windows. We are subjected to this daily disturbance. Further, our units are of high value and we pay high rates,” said concerned residents.

They said they were grateful that a garden service had been hired to clear bush which was encroaching on the property, however this needed to be ongoing and was only initiated following numerous emails and pressure from the residents. They felt the department should engage the services of a security company to look after the property and keep the vagrants out.

In 2018, Sharon Diedericks, Director of Asset Management from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said as the property had been taken over in extremely derelict condition, the entire property required extensive renovations.

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Commenting on the latest developments, she said the Department of Public Works had recently been in contact with the department indicating that an engineer, architect and a project construction manager had now been appointed by them to undertake the project to renovate and reconstruct the buildings and to deal with the current state of the property.

“The site was visited by the project team on 1 December 2020 to assess the way forward with the property. A follow up inspection was done on 7 December by a private architect, engineer and contractor to obtain a second opinion on the fate of the structures on the property. Both visits resulted in a recommendation to demolish and reconstruct all buildings within the property. The team is currently preparing the AMAFA submission to obtain permission to demolish the structures as some of them are quite old. The AMAFA approvals may result in further delays before you will actually see some progress on the ground,” she said.

Diedericks said it has been proposed that the project be implemented in two phases – phase one is to deal with the abundant vegetation and the demolishing of all structures on the property and phase two to deal with the design and construction of the new buildings.

“The Department of Agriculture has had this project on the Infrastructure plan since 2017 and we are aware that the progress has been extremely slow. We have written to the HOD of Department of Public works to try escalate this slow progress and obtain his intervention, hopefully this is why we have had these teams visit the site during December. I have also hired a garden service to undertake some bush clearing on the property. This garden service has been contracted for two years to assist the department with the clean up,” she said.

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