Cape Town - Just over a year after Eindhoven Breaking New Grounds residents moved into their new homes, they say more discrepancies keep popping up, causing confusion about the merit of the project.
Despite complaining about the infrastructural issues, such as cracks in walls leaking roofs, they claim the City of Cape Town stole and reduced their land to build more houses.
The project was completed and houses were handed over to the residents from August and the entire project of 151 units, valued at R33 million, was completed in April last year. It consists of 37 double-storey free-standing, 14 double-storey semi-detached, 24 single storey free-standing, 68 single-storey semi-detached and eight single “disabled” houses.
Residents said they are stuck in small yards with most having minimal space to put up washing lines, no play areas for children, little to no drive-in parking space, as well as houses built too close to one another with a few having incomplete snags; and say they can't even build security walls to keep criminal elements at bay.
They claimed that the original plan, which allocated most of them over 130m² each, wasn't considered – the plots were allegedly divided into two and the initial erf numbers do not correspond with the records of the City.
“I was confused when I learned that my plot couldn’t be found on City records when the water metres were installed. I went to enquire and found out my erf belonged to the old houses, with all different information from mine. I am now sitting without the meter number,” said Patricia Lindt, a resident.
Meanwhile, Shirley de Bruin said the situation and delay to fix the discrepancies pushed her to rather sell the house and find a safe neighbourhood to move to.
“The bank wants a Surveyor General (SG) diagram. We then went to the municipality to get it, only to discover that our plot numbers are all wrong, and do not exist.The only SG diagram we could get was for the project that was approved in 1993, which shows we have bigger land [but] then local government or Human Settlements decided to do a subdivision, which was never approved.
“We want this to be rectified and for the City to return our land,” she said.
The City said they are currently “dealing with historical planning issues at its Eindhoven project. The City has an open-door policy and encourages residents to approach us with their enquiries.”
Malusi Booi, Mayco Member for Human Settlements said, “More work has been done to respond to their complaints. The complaints regarding the contractor’s workmanship are being addressed on an ongoing basis utilising local skilled artisans.
“The residents have been informed that if they wish to build boundary walls, they must submit formal building plans to the City for approval. There were no poorly built structures. Safety is always taken into account. All City contracts comply with Health and Safety regulations."
The community said the engagements with the authorities since October last year have been unfruitful as none of their issues have been solved yet. They said their safety was compromised as criminals run across the neighbourhood, trespassing in their homes, and windows get broken due to stone throwing at times, since there is no fencing or walls to secure homes.