Ferryman’s will be fixed, owner of dilapidated hotel promises
A YEAR after the municipality issued a warning to the owner of the dilapidated Ferryman’s Hotel that he was contravening the National Building Regulations and to rectify his property, nothing has been done.
The building, in a prime spot on the Kowie River, has been in a state of disrepair for some years, with both residents and visitors commenting on the seeming neglect. The portion called the annex is visibly derelict, with broken windows.
At one time the hotel provided accommo- dation to students of Stenden South Africa, and was especially festive during the 2010 World Cup when a number of Dutch students were staying there. But Stenden stopped using the hotel after then Ward 7 councillor Louise Swanepoel pointed out that the fire escape was falling apart. Some repairs took place but the Ferryman’s never got the students back.
On February 4 last year, Ndlambe’s infrastructural development director, Noluthando Vithi, wrote to the Ferryman’s Trust, owner of the hotel, advising it of the contravention, and calling upon the trust to rectify the matter by March 3 last year.
“Failing compliance with this notice, legal proceedings may be instituted against you without further notice,” the letter stated.
In his letter of response, trustee and owner Johan Kleyn said renovations had already been under way in 2015, “which I started out of our own initiative”.
But he said he had become gravely ill during 2015, requiring almost a month’s stay in hospital.
“During that time, as well as the lengthy recovery process that had to follow thereafter, my work obviously fell behind schedule, which forced me to redo all my planning,” Kleyn wrote.
He told the municipality it remained his “highest priority” to complete the project as soon as possible. He also acknowledged the property had tourism value and he was not able to generate full potential income from it until the upgrade and renovations project was complete.
TotT’s source, who provided the correspon- dence, said a year had passed since then, with no sign of any work having been done.
In response to TotT’s queries, Kleyn said “extensive renovations” had taken place on the hotel interior before he got sick, including plumbing, repairing of leaks, tiling, stripping paint and replastering.
But he admitted no work had taken place in more than a year.
He said the December shutdown in the building industry had delayed him further.
“I had backlogs elsewhere, I had priorities elsewhere.”
He said the only other renovations which would take place would be “making good and tidying up”. He could not provide a timeframe.
As for the condition of the annex, Kleyn said: “Why should we replace windows that are broken by vandalism? We’ve replaced them before. It’s an unnecessary expense and totally unjustified.”
Nonetheless, he said he would eventually replace the broken windows. He said he was in ongoing talks with people interested in developing the site, but it would be “a challenge to get things through the heritage system”.
Still, he believes there had been many other changes over the years which already affected the heritage value of the building.
“I’m not a ‘don’t care’ person or lazy,” he said. “It lies near to my heart. I want the right thing to happen.”
He said although rooms were available, the hotel was not accepting guests.
Municipal spokesman Cecil Mbolekwa said: “The municipality is looking at the issue of Ferryman’s. There has been constant interaction between the municipality and the owner of the building, having also noted his condition as per his response to the municipality.”