Resort to be demolished

One of the Wild Coast resorts that was built illegally on state property will be demolished and rebuilt elsewhere, its owner confirmed yesterday.

Wild Lubanzi Backpackers owner Aidan Lawrence said the structures “were built illegally by the first owners”.

Lawrence was reacting to a Daily Dispatch report yesterday which listed his business as one of several facing demolition after being found to have been built illegally on state-owned land.

The project is a department of public works programme called “operation bring back” which is aimed at recovering lost state property, some of which was leased out by pre-1994 regimes, while other buildings were built illegally on state land.

Lawrence said: “We have taken corrective action with the department and have agreed to demolish the building ourselves in a sustainable manner.

“We are aware of the notice and have been in process with the government in identifying a new location for the business. This has been done and a permit has been issued to relocate the Wild Lubanzi Backpackers to a new site within the proposed coastal settlement,” he said.

Wild Lubanzi is a 27-bed backpackers lodge that has dorm beds, double rooms and double en-suite rooms. The 52% community-owned backpackers was established in 2010.

Another Eastern Cape resort listed among those built illegally on state land is Crawford’s Cabins in Chintsa North.

A small portion (0.5736 hectares) of the original Crawford’s resort built in the 1940s was “unknowingly constructed on un-surveyed state land”, said Public Works MEC Thandiswa Marawu. This was discovered when the state surveyed its land in 2011.

The Dispatch reported yesterday that its owner, Ian Crawford, said the encroached portion was regularised six years ago, and that “the state leases the land to Mr Crawford”.

Marawu said the department was “in the process of regularising” the encroachment at Crawford’s Cabins.

Marawu also told the Saturday Dispatch this week that the national department issued 12 section 60 notices in terms of the Integrated Environmental Management Act for the removal of 12 cottages along the Wild Coast in the Lubanzi and Nqabara areas.

Following these notices, 10 structures were demolished in November. “Officials from the Eastern Cape’s Green Scorpions, with police, systematically set fire to four empty, illegal, thatched cottages and demolished the other six.

“This was the first enforcement in South Africa of the Integrated Coastal Management Act, which also brings into effect a new coastal management plan,” Marawu said.

Together with the Wild Coast spatial development plan, the Green Scorpions want to remove all illegal and unsafe structures within a kilometre of the shoreline, as part of the state’s plan to update its asset register.

“Wild Lubanzi Backpackers and 14 homesteads have found themselves inside the coastal conservation areas depicted by a yellow line drawn on plans. They face removal based on whether they had historic permission to occupy, or because they are unsafe structures,” she said.

Lawrence said: “Our plan is to relocate to the new site allocated to us under legal permit from Dedeat. We will rebuild the backpackers with the communities’ support over the next few years. It has been really good to move into a positive space with Dedeat.”