New DSTV building upsets resident
RANDBURG – New DSTV MultiChoice building upsets a resident who lives behind the construction site.
The new DSTV building on the corner of Republic Road and Bram Fischer Drive has had certain members of the public up in arms since its inception about two years ago.
One of the disgruntled residents, Vanessa Silva, lives in Barkston Drive directly behind the new building. She explained that she has had issues with dust, floods and cracks in her house as a result of the construction.
“The biggest problem of them all is whenever it starts to rain – then all of the water from the new DSTV building runs through my palisade wall at the back of my house and floods my entire yard ankle deep. The other problem is a mobile toilet that has been erected close to my wall – this stench is so bad that my domestic worker refuses to eat outside.”
She added that following a burst pipe in February, her garden was flooded and most of her plants and trees were damaged after the flood.
“I immediately called the construction crew at DSTV to raise my concerns and I was put in contact with Paul Coelho, who is a construction manager at the new site.”
Coelho arranged with a gardener to go and plant six iceberg rose bushes, two lollipop trees, two hibiscus plants, four trays of impatiens plants with six plants in each tray, three trays of petunias and six bags of potting soil.
He said, “The gardener planted all of the new plants and bushes on 16 February. According to me, the only outstanding issue still is the new patches of grass that has to be planted but this is a problem as that section of her garden does not get any sun and the grass is already dead there because of that.
“The flood was caused by a pipe that was hit by my team during the paving process outside the DSTV building and we rectified the problem by replacing every plant, bush and tree that got damaged in the flood.”
Coelho explained that Silva needs to understand that all of the houses behind the DSTV building is going to be influenced by any additional water after a rainstorm. “We call it a water run-off when water has to follow its natural course after a storm and it has to run through the lower areas.”
According to a MultiChoice spokesperson, they have been in contact with Silva regarding all of her issues, “We have been in touch with Mrs Silva and her house is not directly behind the new building – her house adjoins the fire station land. We believe that there is no direct impact on her house from the activities of the new building. We are very committed to help residents in Barkston Drive who have been impacted by the building of MultiChoice City. However, the damage in Mrs Silva’s case was not caused by the new building.”
