By Eddie Botha

Open public land to be used for a concrete mixing plant by developers of the R1.6 billion shopping mall on the doorstep of East London’s Hemingway’s Casino was initially meant to have been only used as a storage area.

Angry residents in the Ocean View area, which overlooks the concrete mixing plant, are now threatening to apply for an interdict to stop Buffalo City Municipality from leasing the land to the Billion Group for five years.

Last week the residents complained that the lease agreement between the municipality and the Billion Group was signed without consulting them. The plant will be used to supply concrete for building the shopping mall development over the road.

BCM development planning director Craig Sam said at the time the Billion Group’s application to lease the land “to put their equipment and for a batching plant” had been advertised.

However, it has now turned out that the February 14 advertisement placed by the municipality in the Daily Dispatch, which called for objections to the lease, only stated that the developers wanted to use it as “storage area for plant and materials”.

Asked this week whether the Billion Group was not exceeding its rights under the lease agreement by operating a concrete mixing plant on the site instead of using the land as a storage area, Sam said: “The company is not exceeding its rights as the initial application to lease was for a storage area for plant and materials and later the batching plant was included upon request of the applicant and included in the signed lease agreement.”

Subsequently, the Dispatch asked Sam whether the municipality had not been obliged to re-advertise its intention to change the conditions of the lease, allowing the residents a further opportunity to object to the lease.

Pan Africanist Congress councillor Costa Gazi said he would raise the issue at the next council meeting after meeting with the residents yesterday and inspecting the site.

Gazi, who said the municipality had no concern for the Ocean View community, suggested they obtain legal representation to interdict the municipality from continuing with the lease.

Kathy Thomas, whose mother Kate Kirsten lives directly opposite the open land which has now been cleared by bulldozers and is being fenced off, said she and two other concerned residents, Lulekwa Manyadu and Fred Smith, hand-delivered a petition signed by 21 residents to city manager Gaster Sharpley’s office on Monday. The petitioners objected to the presence of the concrete mixing plant, calling it a health hazard.

Sam said the R1480 yearly rental the municipality charged the Billion Group “is the market-related rental which has been determined by the municipal valuer and considered in the report approved by council”.

Thomas responded: “Is that what they are charging: R1480 per year? Is that what they are selling us out for?”

Daily Dispatch