By Amukelani Chauke

Plans to upgrade Randburg’s central business district and enable more people to move into the area have ground to a halt.

Developers of upmarket townhouses in the neighbourhood are furious that Joburg Council cannot give them power.

Joburg council’s Spatial Development Framework of 2003 outlined plans to approve high-density residential developments in Randburg’s CBD and surrounding suburbs to allow 3000 more families to live closer to where they work.

Now those housing developments are lying vacant — except for squatters.

A petition signed by 40 property developers has been handed to City Power officials.

Attorneys for the developers have extracted a promise from senior City Power staff that the problem will be resolved — but at the end of next year at the earliest.

Area ward councillor Alison van der Molen, who attended the meeting, said the lack of available electricity had “hindered development and economic growth” and potential development had been “chased away by the lack of power”.

Now residents say vagrants have moved into vacant buildings — some of which have been empty for over four years — worsening the urban decay that council is trying to prevent with its Randburg CBD rejuvenation plan.

Maria Ferreira, head of the Ferndale East Residents’ Forum, said unoccupied developments in her neighbourhood were a “complete mess”.

Johnnie Louw, a lawyer and property developer , said that “at least 10 properties in Ferndale are on the waiting list for electricity and are currently occupied by vagrants living in bad conditions”.

Louw said he had lost an estimated R700000 a year in rates, taxes and escalation costs on his 88- unit Surrey Avenue development . “If City Power supplies electricity, then we are all winners,” he said.

Another developer, Marius Meyer, bought a stand in Ferndale last February. The council sent him a letter, a copy of which is in Metro’s possession, saying his rezoning application would be approved and that City Power could supply him with electricity.

Two months later, Meyer was told the letter was “an error” and his rezoning application was declined as there was not enough power available.

Meyer said that e very month; he wastes R36000 in taxes, rates and escalation costs.

He also has another stand in Ferndale that he bought for R1.65- million in 2005 which has still not received electricity as there is none available. On that development he forks out over R22000 monthly and “there is no end in sight”.

City Power spokesman Sol Masolo said the company was “not a generator of electricity, but a distributor”.

He said City Power had held a meeting with businesses in the Randburg, Sandton and other northern suburbs areas to inform them of electricity upgrades.
 

Sunday Times