A Cape Town man who has spent millions on his dream home, says he will fight to prevent the city from demolishing it.
|||Cape Town - A Bantry Bay man, who has spent millions on building his dream home and a court case fighting to save his house, says he will fight tooth and nail to prevent the city from demolishing his incomplete three-storey home.
Judd Smith, 39, a building contractor, has hit back at the city after the Good Hope sub council recommended his incomplete property for demolition. The subcouncil “unanimously refused” Smith’s latest building plan application, saying the building on the corner of Victoria and Seacliffe Roads was undesirable and contravened the city’s scenic route policy. They also said the building was illegal as the work done deviated from the plans approved in 2008, and that the border wall was built on city land.
Smith blasted the council for its inconsistency, disputing that his building affected the scenic route or that the general “envelope” of his building had deviated from the original approved plans.
He bought the property as a double dwelling, two-storey home and said he spent his life savings on the extensions.
He submitted building plans in 2008 and was granted approval to convert it to three storeys. “The envelope of the building - height and width - is as per the approved plan which council allowed me to build. I also had to pay a R6 000 scrutiny fee where the council employs an experienced town planner to scrutinise my plans,” Smith said.
After he started to build in 2009, he submitted a rider plan to change his internal building plans which he said included bigger bathrooms and a change in the bedrooms design. Smith said only then was he told that he was on the scenic drive, but said the city did not stop him from building.
In September 2009, when his house was at the current height, he was issued with a lawyer’s letter from his neighbour saying he should stop building or the neighbour would interdict him.
The city’s building inspector also issued him with a notice to cease work for any unauthorised building work he was doing.
The Western Cape High Court later ruled in favour of his neighbour and interdicted Smith from building further.
“I took it to the Supreme Court of Appeal but my neighbour and I reached an agreement that I would pay all his legal fees and he agreed to stop suing me as long as I stopped at the level which I am at now,” Smith said.
The council re-advertised Smith’s plans in 2011 and since then it has been through the public comment phase and other processes until May when the subcouncil recommended that the building be demolished.
“They said the building was ugly and should be demolished. Yes it is ugly but that’s because it’s unplastered and when it’s complete it will look beautiful. Even if I knock my building down there will still be another property and people will look into his house, and both our properties are zoned for seven floors,” Smith said.
The recommendation by the subcouncil is now in the appeal period and Smith said he would appeal while the subcouncil has also said it would fight the case as this was one property the city had taken a stand on to demolish.
“It’s been a long, tedious road and I’ve spent all this money building within the framework of what they approved. It’s not going to make sense for me to knock it down. The scenic drive doesn’t exist because so many properties protrude above it,” he said.
zara.nicholson@inl.co.za
Cape Times