Row over excavation for mosque
A NEIGHBOURHOOD in Puntan’s Hill, Morningside, expected a resident of their street to build a new mosque that would be ready by Ramadaan.
Now that the Islamic month of fasting has started, all there is to show for the area that would have provided parking for the place of worship on a property in Imeson Road is a huge, steep-sided hole.
It has damaged the Karrim home’s driveway and directly threatens their outbuilding.
In court this week, the developer, Muhammed Subathar, faced a threat of jail time for being in contempt of court for not having obeyed a court order.
In January, the court had told him to take remedial action within 48 hours.
The Durban High Court has now ruled that the developer has until May 5 to repair the dangerous situation.
In court papers, Ridwaan Karrim said his family feared for their lives and their home was also at risk, and the building works not being in compliance with building codes and regulations. “In fact, we are fearful that we are one heavy rain away from our property collapsing,” his affidavit read.
Also in the documents is a preliminary engineer’s report “that the construction site has undergone deep excavation along the boundary line to depths of three to 4.5m. The banks were cut almost vertically with no or inadequate form of lateral support”.
“The extent of the damage is that sections of the cut bank have already started to collapse with encroachment on our property.”
He said his engineer’s report further stated that the exposed bank was extremely unsafe, that a slip failure of the excavated banks was a strong possibility and “the outbuilding on our property will collapse if the site is excavated up to the boundary”.
The case is continuing.