Public works and infrastructure investigating syndicates profiting from hijacked Durban buildings

KwaZulu-Natal’s public works and infrastructure department is continuing its crackdown on hijacked and abandoned buildings in eThekwini in an effort to revitalise the city.

MEC Martin Meyer visited two buildings around the south beach area — the Palm Beach hotel and the Seamen's Institute on Friday.

Both structures are among hundreds of government-owned buildings in the province that have been identified by the department as either hijacked and underused.

“We cannot have a situation where the government plays the role of a slumlord. We have a responsibility to make sure that the areas are well maintained and that we’re not part of the problem but the solution,” he said.

He said prioritising such buildings, which form part of over 13,000 assets under the provincial department, was one of the commitments they made as the new government and he was confident they were on track.

“We have made really good progress on that. We’ve been doing audits of all our buildings and we’re trying to fix the problem.”

Meyer said they found residents had been living illegally at Seamen's, a historical building in existence for over a century, for almost 19 years.

Head of department Dr Vish Govender said they are currently investigating a syndicate profiting from the buildings.

“We’re told reliably there are people who are renting out these buildings to illegal occupants and the community safety sector is dealing with that,” said Govender.

“Under co-operative governance, the national minister and MEC have undertaken a memorandum of understanding between all interested and affected parties to deal with issues like these and part of that is to look at the criminal elements involved in people illegally occupying a building and paying rental to a particular person but that is information that SAPS is dealing with.”

For the Palm Beach hotel, identified as underused Meyer said the department is paying R152,000 every month for rates, in addition to security.

“So it puts a lot of pressure on an already cash-strapped department and that’s why we’re coming with good solutions.”

One of the solutions is for the department to work with eThekwini and the private sector to repurpose, reuse or resell such buildings.

“This fits in perfectly with our plan and strategy of revitalising the inner city and reusing our buildings.”

He said the department is handing over the Seamen's building to eThekwini municipality which will relocate the people living there and redevelop the building to be used for social housing.

“We have already on our side signed the paperwork to hand this building over, on their request, to the municipality. They have a council resolution to fix this building up. They will do the costing of moving the people but we will give any assistance that we can.”

He said they were looking at working with the private sector to revitalise the Palm Beach hotel and possibly turn it into student accommodation or social housing but the process was still at an early stage.

“We have very good plans and we will partner with the private sector and see what is best for the city and the area. A few private sector members have already reached out to us to say they were willing to partner with us because we don’t have money within our budget to do it by ourselves,” he said.

“There are various models we can look at: long-term leases or something where we use part of the building and they use another part but they develop it. There are different channels open to us and I’m very excited about it.

“We can’t have the department of public works own a building like that,literally just two blocks away from some of the premium hotels that bring tourists in. It’s not good for our tourism and our city.”

Meyer said the administration would be entering more partnerships, either with the private sector or other government spheres, moving forward.

“We won’t be going at this alone. The days of government trying to do everything by themselves is gone.”

He said these measures would result in big savings for the department which could be reallocated for more pressing needs.

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