Tshwane mayor’s stern warning to Pretoria CBD landlords

A poster, one of many along the streets of Pretoria, seeking tenants to share apartments. Photo: Jonisayi Maromo

A poster, one of many along the streets of Pretoria, seeking tenants to share apartments. Photo: Jonisayi Maromo

Published Nov 3, 2016

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Pretoria - The Tshwane municipality will revamp numerous buildings in the city centre which are home to thousands of people but have been neglected by the property management companies which only accept monthly rentals from the tenants, Tshwane Mayor Solly Msimanga said on Thursday.

“We want to attract investment. We want this city to be a place where people can play, live and work. You cannot do that if one building is up to standard but the next building looks like a slum. We are going to have to clean that. What causes to have things like that is having 20 people sharing a two-bedroom flat. We are going to check and correct on that,” said Msimanga.

“We are also going to engage with property owners. We give them a timeframe to fix and upgrade their buildings. Failure to do that, the city will do it and they will get the bill. It doesn’t help to have people staying in [plush suburbs] renting out these properties but they don’t even care what is happening.

“We’ve identified a number of buildings owned by people who are no longer in the country, who receive rent at the end of each month, but they don’t care whether there is maintenance or no maintenance of their buildings.

Countless property management companies have mushroomed in Pretoria due to the high demand of CBD apartments by students enrolled at numerous tertiary institutions in the city, civil servants due to the head offices of government departments being located centrally and many other people from all walks of life.

Numerous tenants in the CBD buildings told the African News Agency (ANA) that some of the buildings they stay in are a health hazard due to perennial non-maintenance and overcrowding. Rentals are high with a single bedroom apartment attracting rental of around R4 000 per month, excluding electricity and water bills.

To maximise the profits, unscrupulous “landlords” subdivide the standard rooms, resulting in overcrowding and filthy, slum-like conditions right in the heart of South Africa’s capital city, which also accommodates the seat of government, the grand Union Buildings nearby, and the second largest number of embassies in the world after Washington D.C.

Tshwane University of Technology students, who only preferred to be identified as Nomzamo and Charles, for fear of victimisation, said the situation in the inner city apartments was perilous for students and low income earners. Their apartment had been modified with curtains to accommodate additional tenants.

“We only know that the building we stay in is managed by (a property management company), but we have not interacted with anyone from that company. The ‘landlord’ who was leased the apartment stays in the suburbs and only pitches once, at month end to collect rent. To start with, the elevator is constantly out of service, there are leakages all over the place, floors are filthy but we can only have an option after we graduate and start earning more money. Right now we have to be content with sharing a single bedroom apartment with strangers,” said Nomzamo.

“The situation is worsened by the deafening levels of noise from cars blasting music almost every evening while parked on the streets outside. One cannot sleep, let alone read a book. These wild everyday street parties get worse on Friday nights and weekends.

“This is why we keep demanding that #FeesMustFall, maybe if there are no fees, we can as well afford to move out of the inner city. These buildings might look well on the outside but they are slums on inside.”

Charles weighed in, saying the building they rented in was in desperate need for renovations.

“I don’t know how government allows people to raise children in such filthy environments. The stench only speak volumes about the filth in the building. Msimanga’s plan, if he implements it, would revive the inner city which has been turned into a slum city. What we live in is best described as inner city decay – at its worst form,” he said.

African News Agency

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