Mouille Point residents are butting heads with an Irish property investor over a derelict building that once housed homeless people and a brothel.
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A Bay Road building, dubbed Cinderella, has sparked some controversy among residents. Kenneth Denton bought the house for more than R3 million in 2011 with plans to build a dream home with a ‘world-class’ structure, three storeys in height.
However, he said many residents have objected over the years. ‘If I am saying it takes almost a decade to get planning consent on something and the systems are not working,’ he told the Cape Argus.
‘Then the very people complaining about it are the very people raising 68 objections and delaying it, so they cannot expect it to be done and then go to planning tribunals and delay the whole process.’
‘It is a family home, it is not a retirement home,’ he added.
Following another report where Architect Greg Vijoen of Design Lab Architecture, who designed the plans for the site, stated that ‘construction was imminent’ as the existing structure had no heritage value and was approved for demolition, Vijoen declined to comment.
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On his website, he describes the design as an ‘extreme challenge’.
‘With views from Table Mountain across Table Bay, its North/South axis is the only opportunity to glaze the structure as its sides would be completely solid. The inward type living together with the interior articulated slabs gives a sense of space and lightness.’
‘Forced to use the existing structure and add on – the use of superior cladding techniques will transform this “eyesore” into an Architectural Masterpiece,’ it says on his website.
The plans for the site were first submitted in 2012.
Jane Meyer, spokesperson and coordinator of the Mouille Point Ratepayers’ Association, argues that the structure is an eyesore. She added that the building, which dates back to 1945, was once inhabited by ‘vagrants’.
‘This property has been vacant for as long as I have been with the MPRA (which is over 14 years), all the while steadily deteriorating. The building plans for this site were finally approved in March 2019, yet no construction has started yet?’
According to the City of Cape Town, the Problem Building Unit (PBU) is investigating the matter.
Wayne Dyason, the City’s spokesperson for law enforcement, confirmed that the PBU was aware of the building.
‘The PBU dealt with the property as regulated by the Problem Building By-law. The case was closed in 2022 due to the owner barricading the property which made him compliant in terms of the by-law.’
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Picture: Screenshot from Google Maps