Johannesburg - The City of Joburg was due to apply for an urgent interdict on Thursday morning to stop all building activity at the Alleluia Ministries in Lyndhurst.
This comes after a section collapsed on Tuesday night while an additional storey was being built illegally without plans. No one was injured.
City spokesman Nthatisi Modingoane said the interdict would include the cessation of all church services and activities on the premises.
The city said it had now changed its by-law enforcement control and, starting this month, illegal building and land use would be classified as a criminal offence.
This means that anyone caught building illegally or using property for something it is not zoned for will, in future, face criminal charges and/or stiff fines.
The City of Joburg’s member of the mayoral committee responsible for development planning and urban management, Ros Greeff, reacting to the collapse of the building, told The Star that the new system in dealing with this scourge had just started.
“In the past, our hands were tied. We were issuing stop orders, which were being ignored. We would then have to go through a lengthy and costly court case in the high court, which was tying our hands. Now we can go through the magistrates’ courts, which will be much easier,” she said.
The Star reported last week that Alleluia Ministries had been given two orders by the City of Joburg to stop building because no plans had been approved.
Both these stop orders were ignored, and construction continued.
Furthermore, according to the city’s amendment scheme, the land is not suitable for construction and the entrance to that property should not be on Johannesburg Road, which it is.
A team from The Star were threatened yesterday by church members when they attempted to take photographs of the building.
When the team approached the premises for permission to enter and take photos, a person at the gate said he would not allow them in. He ordered the team to move away from the gate.
When the team refused, saying they were on a public pavement, he became aggressive. He said The Star had no right to be asking questions. “Are you the government of South Africa? We have building plans.”
Told that the City of Joburg had said they had no plans, he insisted they had plans and that the team “should go and look for the plan at the council”.
Asked why they were building when the council had ordered them to stop, he said: “We have had no such order, you must go.”
When the team climbed onto the roof of a next-door building to take photos, church members started shouting that they had no permission to take photos.
“We are going to take that camera by force!” they shouted repeatedly, running towards the locked gate.
At that stage, the team decided to head towards their cars to avoid a physical confrontation. They managed to drive off while the gate was being unlocked.
One neighbour, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was visiting a friend in the neighbourhood when they heard a loud noise.
“We went out to investigate and saw the collapsed second storey. The church immediately turned off all the lights so that people could not take pictures. We heard them working all night trying to clean up,” he said
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Meanwhile, the Alleluia Ministries International church said on Wednesday that the construction was legal.
“We wish to state it categorically that as a church, we are doing everything to the best of our ability to fulfil the requirements of the city council,” spokesman Ndivhuwo Khangale said in a statement. – Additional reporting by Sapa
The Star