Councillors lambast Bay officials

Boardwalk hotel approved despite being well above area’s height restriction

NELSON Mandela Bay councillors yesterday demanded to know who in the municipality had given the go-ahead for the Boardwalk to transgress the city’s zoning regulations for its R1-billion upgrade. Officials in the municipality’s human settlements department received a tongue-lashing from portfolio committee councillors yesterday for making “critical decisions” without the politicians’ knowledge and input.

The councillors’ frustrations were also extended to the approval by the mayoral committee for the region’s first wind farm, despite a previous decision by the human settlements committee that the matter be put on hold pending a full report from various metro departments.

COPE councillor Rano Kayser, in a previous meeting, raised questions about the six-storey, 140-room hotel and international conference centre which is being built at the Boardwalk without the council’s approval for departure from the height restriction on that erf, which would allow only four storeys.

In a report to the portfolio committee yesterday, councillors were told that the construction process “had to commence to meet the deadline dates”.

In the report, human settlements acting executive director Kosalin Naicker said the “practical consequences of stopping such a development mid-way would have had enormous cost and logistical implications.

“Development had to be completed by December 2012 . . . And not granting approval for continued construction would have been detrimental to council and future investments”.

Kayser lambasted the officials who processed the building plans and permitted the additional two storeys, and bypassed the portfolio committee.

“This report cannot be accepted because critical decisions are taken outside of this standing committee,” he said.

UDM councillor Mongameli Bobani said he was shocked. “It looks to me like there is a cover-up somewhere and we cannot rule out corruption on this matter.

“It is important that this is investigated and it has to be an independent investigator because we see that the officials cannot investigate these things themselves.”

Meanwhile, Naicker told councillors that the mayoral committee had approved – and mayor Zanoxolo Wayile had signed off – the plans to construct a wind farm in Blue Horizon Bay, despite vehement opposition from local residents.

At a human settlements meeting in April, councillors decided to refer a decision back to various metro departments for a ruling on whether or not the land earmarked for the project needed to be rezoned before construction began.

Metrowind, the company behind the project to house a nine-turbine wind farm, said the project would generate 5% of the metro’s current Eskom power demand, which was half of the city’s target for renewable energy usage by 2013.

Infuriated councillors yesterday said their roles as members of the portfolio committee were not taken seriously.

Kayser said: “There is no way a decision of the standing committee can be undermined like this”.

The ANC objected to the mayoral committee’s approval of the wind farms whereas the portfolio committee rejected it.

Portfolio chairman councillor Fikile De- si said: “We were supposed to get a full report on this matter, but now we hear that officials took it straight to the mayor. We want to investigate what went wrong.”

Wayile’s spokesman, Luncedo Njezula, said the mayor respected all decisions taken by standing committees.

“All the decisions taken at mayoral committee meetings have to be ratified by council, where all councillors sit. I don’t think the mayor will bypass council because it has to adopt the system,” he said.