City of Joburg embroiled in ‘dodgy’ upmarket ‘squatter camp’ development

The City of Johannesburg is yet again embroiled in an allegedly dodgy residential development, this time inside the Crescentwood Country Estate in Midrand, Johannesburg, where houses cost between R1.9 million and R4 million.

The information that The Citizen has is that Erf 1119 Sagewood Ext 10 is a subdivision of 14 stands, but was acquired and approved for sectional titles despite bizarrely being serviced as a full title.

According to the homeowners, the settlement does not meet requirements for full title and sectional title, hence residents are aggrieved, which has led to illegal electricity, water and sewerage connections.

The service road is so narrow that Pikitup trucks are unable to collect bins, there is a City Power cable running through houses, and in one instance, the cable is running where a swimming pool is supposed to be, just meters from a sewerage pipe.

For the past four years, affected homeowners have been unable to get answers from the city regarding the status of the settlement.

Illegal connections

According to Stanford Sithole, one of the affected homeowners, Erf 1119 was initially earmarked for townhouses but was illegally switched to selling freehold standalone stands, without following the correct subdivision laws.

“City Power conducted an audit sometime back and have denounced the development. There are also water infrastructure irregularities amongst several issues, such as a non-existent homeowner association that was used to register the stands with the Deeds Office,” he said.

Sithole said the city has turned a blind eye to flawed infrastructure and that one stand has an illegal sewage connection, done by builders themselves due to one not having been done prior.

He said in the same stand, sewerage pipes have been laid next to a City Power high voltage cable, yet construction is going ahead at the city approval.

“Stands are not serviced, with no water, electricity, or sewage connection points, and City of Johannesburg is installing such services on behalf of the developers at taxpayers’ expense. The road is derelict, not serviced, and there are no street lights for the past four years.

“In other words, City of Johannesburg by-laws and land subdivision process has not been followed to the letter, and the defects are significant to the extent that the homes are not transferable and the value of the homes will depreciate,” Sithole said.

Another homeowner, Tebogo Ramoipone, said he spent in excess of R3 million building his house, with the intention of selling it, but was unable to do so because of the impasse.

He said the settlement was nothing but a squatter camp, and that the only solution was to demolish houses as some are built on top of City Power cables.

“City Power has refused to give us a map so we could see exactly where their cable runs. The only conclusion we can draw is that they will not take responsibility for this mess and now we find ourselves in limbo,” he said.

Ramoipone said Erf 1119 Sagewood Ext 10 does not meet requirements for sectional or full title.

Sectional or full title?

In 2019 the City’s Group Forensic Investigation Services conducted an investigation into the development and concluded that at no point after the electrical service connection was installed was City Power informed that the development was changing from section title to full title.

“Had we been informed, we would have advised the developer to change the receptacle that had been installed to house the energy meter, to one that could accommodate the energy meters for each individual stand,” the report states.

The report that The Citizen has seen states that the reason the request would change was because the road reserve within the development was smaller than nine meters and with it being so narrow, they could not install all the electrical services without encroaching on other services that would be installed in the road reserve.

“The developer would also have been instructed to install the service cables from the receptacle housing the energy meters to the individual stands. What is currently happening on this stand is in no way what we were informed would happen and the installation is not complaint with our standards. We were not made aware of the change from sectional to full title, and the developer never discussed the installation of multiple energy meters to supply each dwelling,” the report states.

The City of Johannesburg is yet to response to questions on whether Erf 1119 Sagewood Ext 10 is a sectional or full title development, and the process followed in approving the township.

‘The matter is sub judice’

Poppy Louw, spokesperson for the city’s department of development planning, said they were unable to respond to questions as the matter was sub judice, and refused to elaborate.

Wilma Bezuidenhout, senior portfolio administrator for Trafalgar Property Management, Crescentwood Country Estate’s managing agents, said there was a historic matter raised with Community Schemes Ombud Service (CSOS), which was resolved through an adjudication process. 

Bezuidenhout said the estate was of the opinion that the city would be better positioned to provide a right of reply in this regard, especially with respect to the alleged presence of electrical cables, which may present a safety hazard.

She said an adjudication ruling was issued in favour of the estate, stating that it was not liable for any of the services other than those provided for within the complex.

Bezuidenhout said consent for a subdivision is the delegated responsibility of the board of directors in accordance with the provisions of the estate’s memorandum of incorporation (MOI).

“At times residents go ahead and apply for subdivisions without the initial consent of the BOD [board of directors], and this must then be dealt with reactively. However, this oversight or neglect by a resident does not become the responsibility of the CWE [Crescentwood Country Estate] BOD because the final approval for the subdivision is within the authority of [City of Johanesburg],” she said.

siphom@citizen.co.za