EDITOR – For more than 15 years, the derelict building at the corner of Essex and Umbilo Roads has featured regularly in the news.
Finally, the relief in seeing in Berea Mail that a demolition order has been issued regarding that property!
That was months ago. Not only is it still standing, but permission has been granted by the owner for a ‘roof garden’ to be built by a student – when there is no roof!
A consequence of this is a furore over the visit to the dump by members of the Bulwer Community Safety Forum to investigate reports of excessive noise emanating from the site. Aggression and defamatory Facebook comments ensued.
When I renovated an outbuilding, I had to pay R600 for registered letters to allow surrounding property owners to voice objection to my plans. In this instance, the student just has to obtain the permission of the owner to develop an informal settlement on a property housing a condemned building and a rat infested dump, and he is allowed to have electric wires strung from an adjacent building, erecting shacks, and hosting of ‘art’ functions.
As for the demolition, only when it is publicised, does the owner show token signs of anything whatsoever being ‘demolished’.
For years we have suffered as a community due to activities relating to this site. It has hosted prostitutes and their clients. By day, patronised by businessmen stepping through the trash to the permanent love nest in the back of the building for service and others, not even bothering to venture that far, but copulating like animals in the yard with young children of residents calling their parents to come and look!
Drug dealers and clients in and out of the property day and night. Huge rats breeding in refuse and rubble for years, so ‘tame’ that they run around in the street among the children and around people as they stand and converse. Now that the graffiti artists have occupied the dump, our property has graffiti on the front wall in the exact colour blue being used on the walls within the dump. Surely the municipality has to give permission for this kind of occupation of land in a residential area?
Surely ratepayers have a say? Or does this person who has played cat and mouse with the authorities and ratepayers in the area for years, special rights and privileges for a reason unknown?
F Thomas
Umbilo
