By Sipho Masondo

Prominet Jeffreys Bay property developer Abraham Lamprecht has been accused of exceeding the municipal height restriction of 11 metres on one of his new buildings – for the second time.

A fax from Humansdorp land surveyors Maarschalk and Partners in the possession of The Herald reveals that his new Neptune‘s Terrace office complex development is 11,78 metres high, measured from Jeffreys Street, and 12,3 metres measured from Da Gama Road, or ground level.

The property known as Neptune‘s Terrace is a four-storey block of offices on erf 7879 in Da Gama Road, and is the second of Lamprecht‘s buildings to have exceeded the town‘s restrictions of 11 metres.

Two weeks ago The Herald reported that Lamprecht had completed a number of buildings and was in the process of completing others without the plans being approved by Kouga municipality.

Among those was a property on erf 87 in Diaz Road which is under construction and will exceed the town‘s height restrictions by about 510mm.

Neptune‘s Terrace on erf 7879 is the same property for which the municipality initiated a disciplinary hearing against its employee, Fred van Willing, for issuing fraudulent occupation certificates for the first floor. Van Willing acknowledged such charges to The Herald. The case is still pending.

Municipal spokesman Phumzile Oliphant said Lamprecht had submitted the right plans for the building but “allegedly” deviated from them. He said Lamprecht had not obtained permission from the municipality to exceed the restricted height.

The municipality, he said, would address the matter when it received an application to exceed the height threshold from Lamprecht.

However, Oliphant couldn‘t say why the municipality was not acting against Lamprecht as it had admitted that he had breached its regulations. He also couldn‘t say why it had to wait for Lamprecht to submit the “application” first.

The municipality‘s regulations state that for any development to exceed height restrictions, the municipal manager should advertise in the local press and solicit comments from residents.

However, this was not done for either of the properties. In Diaz Road, Kouga mayor Robbie Dennis said this was not necessary as no neighbours would be affected adversely if the building exceeded the height restrictions.

On March 20 The Herald reported that Lamprecht was at loggerheads with members of the Gamtkwa Khoisan tribe for allegedly destroying an archeological site which was on erf 87. The Herald also reported that by that time the municipality had not approved building plans for this property.

Andre Bloem from Lamprecht Projects refused to comment.