RDP homeowners “encroaching” on municipal land told to tear down properties

Ivory Park resident Flora Tjabadi says she used her life savings to renovate her parents’ RDP house. She was one of several people to acquire a notice instructing her to fracture down extensions to their properties which encroach on the road reserve.

• Dozens of homes along Mlilo Street in Ivory Park, Midrand gain been instructed to tear down parts of their properties which encroach on the road reserve.
• The Johannesburg Roads Agency plans to tar streets in the community soon. But some of the RDP houses acquire been extended onto municipal land.
• The affected households are refusing to comply and say they will fight the government’s notice.

Pensioner Rose Masinge is worried that she will no longer maintain a toilet or a front gate to her home if she complies with a legal notice by the Johannesburg Roads Agency.

Masinge’s RDP house is among dozens along and near Mlilo Street in Ivory Park, Midrand whose owners gain been ordered to tear down fragment of their properties which encroach on the road reserve. The agency plans to tar the street soon.

But Masinge and other residents, most of whom acquire lived in their houses since 1991, say when they moved into the houses, all they were told by the government was that their property should not disappear beyond where the water meters were placed.

According to the letter from the Johannesburg Roads Agency, which GroundUp has seen, the affected homes “extend illegally into the road reserve, prohibiting construction to proceed in the road reserve”. Residents were given until 3 May to ruin or relocate their property.

“This is a stressful situation. I don’t know how I will crawl my toilet which is built close to the gate. They should maintain installed the tar road before the construction of the RDP houses. I don’t know how I will rebuild my house. Are they going to pay for this?” said Masinge.

Pensioner Rose Masinge says she doesn’t know how she will rebuild her house.

Resident Flora Tjabadi said residents planned to fight the notice. “Our councillor should believe consulted us and not honest given us letters. Many of us got these RDP houses from our parents who gain passed on. I took all my life savings and renovated my parents’ house.”

Community activist Kholofelo Maduna said, ”People are honest told to wreck down their houses. There’s no specification to even say by how many metres they overlapped onto the road.”

“There’s more than enough space for this road to be built here.”

Ward 77 Councillor Yoliswa Twala told GroundUp that many residents had welcomed the tarring of the road. She did not acknowledge questions about the affected households’ concerns.

Project manager at the agency Tshepo Maimane said most people had not applied to the City of Joburg when they extended their properties.

He said it is residents’ responsibility to comply to municipal by-laws. “We cannot aid people with the costs of moving their homes. However, they are welcome to write to us and inquire for an extension with the breaking down and moving of their homes,” said Maimane.

Mlilo Street in Ivory Park is to be tarred.

Read More at GroundUp