Legal action to be taken against Sunset Manor

MBOMBELA - The Sunset Manor student accommodation in Magda Street will face court action due to the owner’s refusal to close the establishment down.

Sunset Manor, one of numerous illegal student accommodation establishments in the city, has been illegally operating for the past few years. Despite being ordered by the City of Mbombela to close down, neither the owner of Sunset Manor nor the students seem to care about the matter.

The task team established by the municipality and the Ehlanzeni District Municipality to act against student accommodation establishments operating illegally, cracked the whip a month ago.

An inspection done by the task team after numerous complaints from residents of the street about noisy and unruly students, revealed that the former five-star guest house was operating illegally and without a business licence.

The municipality gave the owner two weeks’ notice to legalise, or at least to start the process of conforming to municipal regulations.

The warning and the notice was ignored. Now the case has been referred to the municipality’s lawyers, says Joseph Ngala, the City’s spokesperson.

“A law firm was appointed by the municipality to assist in obtaining a court order against the owner of the property as well as the operators of the establishment. “This is a legal process that the municipality follows when dealing with unlawful activities,” Ngala said.

Linda Grimbeek, COO of the Kruger Lowveld Chamber of Business and Tourism (KLCBT) said the organisation’s efforts to assist the municipality in this regard are slowly but surely making a breakthrough.

“It has become an excessively big problem within the City of Mbombela area.

“They are mushrooming everywhere, and it has now become a massive task to rein them in and get them to comply.” Contributing factors are NSFAS funds. “Students have to submit a rental agreement for housing, vetted by the institution they want to study at, to get funding from NSFAS.

“Funding is, however, paid to the student directly and not the house or the college. This allows the student to go live somewhere else for a fraction of the cost and use the rest of the funds, in most cases, on alcohol. NSFAS payments also come late as a result of corruption, rent is not paid on time, and students are evicted from the good homes,” she said.

“This led to a lot of the good houses to close down as it was not a viable prospect any longer.

“Student houses should comply with the proclaimed by-laws of the municipality that deals with off-site student accommodation and is very specific on the compliance.

“It is also critical that regulations such as that a responsible adult has to live on the premises permanently is the biggest lacking factor. This person should ensure that students comply with standard house rules as set out by the educational institutions, which include no drinking, no guests in the rooms and no noise after 22:00.

“This creates an environment in which it is impossible to study, and students drop out or fail,” she said.

KLCBT invited all student houses that are illegal to ask for help from them to assist in ensuring they become compliant.