Demolition war in Loop Street
2010-01-21
Lise Beyers
A WAR of words has erupted over a vacant and vandalised house on the corner of Loop and Derksen Street in Paarl. This house, which dates from the late 1800’s, has through the past few years become a bone of contention for residents of flats in the area. Sleepless nights are experienced due to rowdy vagrants who have now moved into this building. And residents of the area fear that property values will decline due to this. Now residents of Atlanta flats, which overlook this ruin, have handed a petition containing 300 signatures to the Drakenstein Municipality, to try and pressurise them into issuing a demolition order. The owner of the ruined building, Giepie Brandt, has tried his best to secure the building, but has been unsuccessful. His family purchased the property more than 40 years ago as an investment. In those days it was still profitable to acquire property in the Paarl CBD. But this has very much changed in the past few years, with the demise of this part of Paarl. The property has now become home to many vagrants, despite the fact that Brand has gone to many lengths to fence off the area to keep them off the property. “I have asked the police to step in, and when they do, it is just a temporary solution.” Brandt has no immediate plans to develop the property, but he feels that demolishing it will solve a lot of problems, especially for the residents of Atlanta. But due to the fact that the building is over 60 years old, it has heritage status. Permission for demolition has been turned down by the Western Cape Heritage Society. Thus the building has now been decaying for five years, almost beyond repair. “I have a report from building engineers that states that my building can no longer be repaired,” says Brandt. But not everybody is convinced that the Loop Street building must be demolished. “This is exactly what the owner of the building wants,” says Len Raymond of the Drakenstein Heritage Foundation. “He is demolishing it by neglect.” “The Heritage Foundation has been successfully fighting the preservation of the old buildings of Loop Street, and what is being done to this specific property, is a disgrace. “The Western Cape Heritage Foundation has ordered that the Drakenstein Municipality enforce a compulsory repair order on Brandt, but they are not enforcing the law.” Others involved in the preservation of Paarl are of the opinion that the area in question has been so altered through the years, that it no longer merits heritage status Brandt is appealing against Western Cape Heritage’s refusal to issue a demolition permit. The matter will be discussed at the next meeting of the municipal mayoral committee.
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