Joburg+team+tackles+unsafe+city+buildings,+B.+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, 28 June 2005
=Jo’burg team tackles unsafe city buildings=


 * Chantelle Benjamin, Johannesburg Metro Editor**

ABOUT 300 cases of health or safety violations in Johannesburg’s inner-city buildings are under investigation, according to city authorities.

While not all cases will go to court, the inner-city task force — which inspects, enforces bylaws and cleans up edifices — has already closed down 140 buildings since the team was formed three years ago, spokeswoman Roopa Singh said yesterday.

The city’s clampdown on health and safety violators, which has seen four buildings closed in the past six months and their occupants evicted, is helping to stem the illegal occupation of inner-city structures.

“It would appear that abandoned and poorly managed buildings are at greater risk as opposed to occupied and well managed buildings,” Singh said.

Buildings have been closed for a variety of bylaw violations, including the total collapse of sewerage infrastructure; illegal partitioning with combustible materials; insufficient or no fire-fighting equipment; pest and rodent infestation; overcrowding; open lift shafts; illegal electrical connections; and illegal conversions from office to residential accommodation.

Unsafe buildings are generally uncovered by the task force during surveys of the inner city or by complaints from the community.

Singh said the city would only consider closing a building and evicting occupants if the safety of the occupants was at risk.

“Many of the cases deal with contraventions that are easily rectified,” she said.

“It is only in extreme cases and as a last resort that the city will institute legal action.”

The task team draws a dis-tinction between hijackings — orchestrated money-making plans where a group will house people in an unoccupied building and charge rent — and invasions, which are regarded as the opportunistic use of an empty building, usually by homeless people.

Since it was created the task team has seen six cases of inner- city hijackings, although Singh says it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between hijackings and invasions.

“We also have a situation where owners who have not maintained their buildings claim that it was hijacked … when the owner is actually collecting rent from the occupants.”

In a recent case involving an old art deco building, Beacon Royal, near St John’s College in Parktown, what first appeared to be a hijacking turned out to be the work of a former caretaker.

He saw an opportunity and began renting out rooms in the empty building.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A61438