Update

PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS – More than 50 enquiries have been received by the auctioneers of Plettenberg Bay's concrete "eyesore" on Signal Hill, which goes under the hammer today, Thursday 8 September.

The opening bid price has been set at R5m, according to auctioneer Shawn van Jaarsveld of High Street Auctioneers. The auction will be conducted live and online from the Bryanston Country Club in Sandton.

Saga

This while Mason Lecuona, the director of the company that owns Erf 156, who has put the property on auction, expressed his frustration in dealing with the Bitou Municipality during former Mayor Peter Lobese's reign.

Lecuona sketched the saga around Erf 156 and its unsightly concrete structure, that came to the point where a demolition order, first agreed to in 2016 and never acted on, is now being carried out by the Bitou Municipality. 

He said he does not want to deal with ''the negativity around the property, but rather focus on where we are now and how I got there".

"The story around Erf 156 on Signal Hill has a long history, and not all pleasant," he said. He agreed that the structure in its current form deviates from the building plans that were approved at the time, "and is therefore unlawful" and that it is "a blight on the urban landscape of Plettenberg Bay".

Knowing this, he applied to have the property rezoned to accommodate an 18-room boutique hotel. The rezoning process began on 29 May 2017 when he requested the Bitou Municipality to extend the demolition court order, by agreement, to allow him 60 days to submit a rezoning application to "regularise" the land use. 

"If such a rezoning was approved, it would have paved the way for the submission of building plans to regularise the building structure, and the need for demolition would have fallen away."

He said most of the objections to his plans were an orchestrated campaign by an architect (''based on incorrect information'') and that the Plettenberg Ratepayer's Association never formally objected to the rezoning; only on social media platforms.

The application to rezone was approved by Deputy Mayor Sandiso Gcabayi after Lobesi was ousted from his position as mayor, but this council resolution was rescinded by the current municipal administration.

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