The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) on Wednesday submitted a petition with hundreds of signatures to the Office of the Speaker of the Lesedi Local Municipality, requesting that existing by-laws be reviewed and stringently enforced in Heidelberg’s student housing area.
In October last year, the Municipality approved Extension 5 for student housing without a public participation process and without amending existing by-laws to align with the scale of the project.
The Freedom Front Plus has been inundated with complaints from residents ever since.
Extension 5 consists of residential houses of which approximately 20% have been legally converted into student housing, while another 40% is unlawfully used for student housing. The rest are still occupied by families.
The area borders directly on the Suikerbos Retirement Village, which means that elderly residents must travel through the residential neighbourhood in question on a daily basis.
Illegal student housing – where houses are subdivided and overcrowded – places severe pressure on the existing infrastructure. Frequent power and water outages as well as sewage spilling into the streets are a daily occurrence.
The Freedom Front Plus wants to emphasise that the party is not opposed to tertiary education and has commended Sedibeng College for its quality training. The root of the problem is the lack of suitable housing, inadequate infrastructure and the absence of appropriate by-laws.
The Freedom Front Plus wishes to highlight the following issues:
• Currently, student housing overloads the water, sewerage and electricity networks; the Municipality should ensure sufficient infrastructure capacity.
• Even where erven have been lawfully rezoned, the total floor area of a house should determine how many students are allowed to reside there.
• Noise pollution is the biggest source of conflict; late-night parties and loud music disturb the elderly and families.
• Increased traffic leads to a shortage of street parking.
The Freedom Front Plus requested the Speaker, Phindi Mpemvu, to urgently address the matter and put appropriate by-laws in place.
The party will continuously monitor the area while keeping the pressure on to ensure that the student housing area is properly regulated.
