The December 13 edition of the News’ article Don’t plan on going to the planning office, has reference.
The Mogale City Local Municipality (MCLM) Planning Department does indeed appear to be dysfunctional and, as the News reported, unresponsive.
My experience is as follows: earlier this year, the owner of the property next door approached us, the adjacent neighbours, with a consent form from the MCLM Planning Department.
He intended doing building alterations on his property in order to create more accommodation. He informed me that the municipality was “very much unhappy” about his intentions and if we, the adjacent neighbours, signed the consent form, he would be given permission to proceed with his plans. At the time, four families were already living in the small house, which is situated on a property the size of the proverbial ‘postage stamp’.
We refused to give our consent on the grounds that, in our opinion, the property was already overpopulated and stuffing more tenants into the former garage and outbuildings would be disastrous from a sewerage, sanitation and noise stance, not to mention detrimental to the property values in the area. Some weeks later we noted, with dismay, that the aforementioned building project on said property was proceeding, despite our reservations.
I emailed the Planning Department, citing our concerns over this building project and requesting information regarding the granting of permission for this questionable project. I received no response. I noted that in the News article, the Van Greunen couple merely wanted to extend their patio’s roof by two panels and, to date, they have had to wait nine months.
The owner of the property next door to me clearly wasn’t subjected to the same ‘big backlog’ in signing off on building plans. Permission for his unsuitable and undesirable building project, if it was in fact granted, was obtained suspiciously fast, and if permission was denied, then the municipality should have put a stop to the project when I informed them that it was going ahead. We are now saddled with a shockingly noisy, unsanitary, unsightly, densely populated human settlement in our midst, situated on a portion of Burger Street which used to be a decent residential suburb with high standards of behaviour and property maintenance.
