What the metro says about Comet
Spokesperson for the mayor of Ekurhulen, Zweli Dlamini, denies claims that the metro is doing nothing about the Comet issue.
He then supplied the Advertiser with the progress report on Comet Village.
“The Comet village was identified as a potential housing project and feasibility studies were conducted,” says Dlamini in a statement.
The studies resulted in a positive outcome and a Professional Regional Team (PRT) was appointed by province to conduct pre-planning duties.
This included geo-tech, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and a heritage study as many of these buildings were designed by Sir Herbert Baker.
According to Dlamini, there was an agreement with the former land owner DRD Gold at the time, but this lapsed due to the length of time it took to conduct the heritage study.
“DRD Gold then received an offer from Living Africa to purchase the land, and duly informed the Human Settlements Department. The department was unable to make an offer due to the required studies not being completed.
“DRD Gold then sold the land to Living Africa. Upon obtaining the information that DRD Gold had sold off the land, all the land studies were put on hold.
“The Human Settlements Department then met with the new landowner and a further agreement was reached to continue with the studies with a view to procure the property.
“The required studies have since been completed and approval for the project has been obtained from Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (GDARD).
“The metro’s Legal Corporate Department has been requested by the Human Settlements Department to proceed with the procurement of the property, and they have completed the valuation of the land. An item to be served to Council by Real Estates for approval has been prepared and is currently receiving comments from departments.
“The Human Settlements Department is aware of pending evictions, due to landlord and tenants-related matters. The community leaders do not recognise Living Africa as the land owner, and refer to them as middlemen.
“The issue of the provision of services by the municipality can only be resolved at project implementation stage, when the procurement of the property has been finalised.
“Due to the prime locality, the planned project is a high density walk-up type development of 100 to 200 units per hectar. Most of the existing buildings will be demolished as they do not comply with National Building Standards.
“There will be no single stand RDP style houses, and this has been communicated to the community through various meetings.”
