Dilapidated buildings to go down as City strengthens by-laws
Published: February 24, 2023<< BACK TO NEWS
In an effort to restore the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s City centres, the Municipality has resolved to resume the major project of identifying and demolishing problem buildings that are contributing to urban decay and the degeneration of Central Business Districts.This comes after NMBM Executive Mayor, Cllr Retief Odendaal held a meeting with the Eastern Cape Provincial Heritage Resources Agency (ECPHRA) on Wednesday, 22 February 2023, to discuss among other issues the state of buildings classified to fall within the heritage threshold of 60 years.
The Mayor with NMBM Human Settlements officials, were joined by a team from by ECPHRA, led by Chairperson, Dumisani Sibayi.
"The current state of these buildings is contributing to urban decay, degenerating our City Centre and is not in line with our urban regeneration initiatives. It has been agreed that the Municipality must lead the process of listing and identifying all the dilapidated buildings that are classified as problem buildings in the Problem Building By-law developed by the municipality,” said Mayor Odendaal.
Once identified the buildings will be demolished and property owners must be liable for all the associated costs.
"We are also of the view that there must be platforms held monthly to deal with all administrative processes. NMBM has some of the oldest buildings in South Africa, it is important that the restoration of heritage resources is done without contributing to the current urban challenges, to be sustainable for the growth of local economic development and be investment friendly,” the Mayor added.
ECPHRA’s Sibayi said: "We agreed to work very close and share information. We will provide professional guidance on how to manage the problem buildings after the Municipality has provided us with the list of the problem buildings. Most of these buildings are old, beyond 60 years old. Any building older than 60 years is protected by the National Heritage Resources Act and whoever wants to demolish the building must apply through ECPRA. Some of these buildings are a danger for the Municipality because their owners are not looking after them, so I could say that the meeting went well.”
Ends.
Issued by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Communications Office.
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