By Yazeed Kamaldien

Squatters moved to temporary housing

Cape Town’s Old Junction Hotel, which collapsed after heavy rains at the weekend, faces demolition, the authorities said.

The two-storey hotel in Salt River collapsed on Saturday and its 70 residents were moved to temporary housing in Delft on the Cape Flats.

The hotel’s owner has not been traced and Piet van Zyl, the city’s executive director for strategy and planning, said the hotel — which had been on the city’s list of “problem buildings” — would be demolished.

The owners of the 110-year-old hotel have accumulated rates debts, and the squatters who have occupied the hotel have not had access to water and electricity for months.

“It’s a very old building and the remaining structure is in disrepair. The partial cave-in on Saturday is testimony that it is structurally unsound,” said Van Zyl.

The hotel was the second building to be inspected as part of Cape Town’s new strategy for dealing with problem buildings, launched a month ago.

This strategy is being implemented by the city’s planning and building development department, which said that it wants to monitor “buildings that appear to be abandoned by owners, derelict , overcrowded, in a deplorable state or pose a serious health or safety risk”.

Brian Watkyns, chairman of the council’s planning and environment portfolio committee, said owners of such buildings could face legal action or property closures.

“The relevant city departments will serve a joint notice on the owner, setting out all contraventions, and will stipulate a deadline by which he must comply with the legislation.

“The city will closely monitor the situation and if the owner does not rectify the problems within the stipulated deadlines, he will be summonsed ,” said Watkyns.

City officials say there has been an increase in dilapidated or abandoned properties in Cape Town. Watkyns said the city needed to “address community health and safety concerns” and “rejuvenate these problem buildings”.

Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, the city’s disaster management spokesman, said the Old Junction hotel’s residents had been offered “voluntary accommodation” in Delft .

“We have offered them metal structures to live in. They will go on a waiting list for proper housing,” he said.

Source: The Times