“I want my gates back where they belong.”
These are the words of Pollak Park Extension Three resident Cynthia Taylor (68) who claims her neighbour has recently, without consulting her, built a boundary wall encroaching 150mm onto her property.
Read: Wall wrongfully built on property
The Ekurhuleni Metro has responded to the query following the dispute between the two neighbours.
Zweli Dlamini, mayoral spokesman, says members from the city planning department took the necessary action to try and solve the problem.
“When the officials visited the property they discovered that a 2.1m high boundary wall was built and 60 days after a contravention notice, dated March 23 was issued to the man building the wall.
The message of issuing of notice was communicated to Taylor via the email in May.
The metro received a letter from Taylor’s neighbour requesting an extension of the contravention date to June 30.
Dlamini says the man asked for an extension to comply with the notice by submitting building plans for approval.
However, the plan was submitted prior to the extension request.
When the metro officials visited the site again they recommended the owner appoint a land surveyor to verify boundary pegs.
“The encroachment sketch plan from the surveyor indicates only 50mm for a land surveyor report,” says Dlamini.
He says the metro doesn’t require neighbours’ consent for approving a building plan for a boundary wall.
The current status of building plans have been approved on the June 6 with a confirmation form from an engineer stating the safety of the wall.
“Based on the report from the land survey and the approval of the building plans the metro has recommended that no further action to be taken against the owner of the property who built the wall,” says Dlamini.
However, Taylor is not happy with their decision.
“Place yourself in my position where I lost a few millimetres of my property,” she says.
Her neighbour, she claims, has removed her gates without her consent, to make space for the new boundary wall and she wants her gates back in place to be able to close off her property.
She is adamant not to accept any easy solution to her gate problem.
