Musgrave property owners defy city’s orders

RESIDENTS in Musgrave are up in arms about a house where construction is proceeding in clear defiance of the city’s stop order.

In 2019, a dilapidated property on Stephen Dlamini Road was sold to new owners much to the relief of the neighbours who had grown frustrated with the unkempt state of the house.

According to records and emails that Berea Mail have seen, the new owners of the property were granted a demolition order. 

Shortly after demolishing the house, the new owners started constructing a new building last year with deep excavations taking place. 

This shocked the neighbours as they had no knowledge and were not informed of the new owners plans for construction. One of the neighbours was worried the deep excavations would tear down their boundary wall.

In an email chain, Sandile Sokhela, eThekwini Municipality’s Regional Coordinator for Land Use Management/Town Planning Central North Region Areas, says the site is zoned for medium density housing.

“In terms of the records of the Land Use Management branch, there is neither a building plan nor REL (relaxation of building line/side space/rear space) application submitted for the subject site,” he wrote.

On 14 October 2020, Edwin Sibiya, eThekwini Municipality’s Senior Professional Planner/Team Leader, told the neighbours in an email the city had received an application for rezoning from the new owners. “The application is currently at a stage where departmental comments are being procured. Following this, (there) will be a formal public participation period where the public will be afforded an opportunity to comment on the proposal,” he wrote.

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Neighbours raised concerns as to how construction had commenced without an approved building plan from the city or a public participation forum. Despite this, construction continued on the property even reaching an “advanced stage” as one neighbour puts it.

On 3 December last year, Nandipha Baduza, eThekwini Municipality’s Principal Building Inspector said the owners of the property were served a notice for “illegal work” on 17 September 2020.

“I did a  site inspection today and building works are continuing on site. I have issued a site instruction and stop work notice instructing all building work to cease immediately, notices will be forwarded to Law Enforcement,” she wrote in an emailed response to neighbours in December. She said the site inspector would further monitor the site for non-compliance.

In a pattern of behaviour similar to the previous incidents, the owners ignored the orders from the city and continued with the construction.

In response to questions sent by Berea Mail, Msawakhe Mayisela, eThekwini Municipality Spokesperson said, “The site was visited, and the builder was charged on 18 December 2020. We are currently monitoring the site for compliance and another site visit is planned.”

Berea Mail visited the site last week and can confirm that construction operations are still ongoing. Berea Mail called one of the developers and he said he cannot comment on the matter before hanging up the phone.

“You just called me out of the blue. I have no comment for you at this stage, your number showed up here and if anything comes up then I will contact you,” he said.

Cheryl Johnson from Save Our Berea said there was a growing pattern in the community of developers flouting bylaws and building whatever they like much to the detriment of their neighbours. “Clearly the punishment currently in place is totally inadequate. Harsher fines and penalties need to be applied – and sooner rather than later,” she said.

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