Having high walls erected all around my house, thanks to Mepa, feels like being in prison or living in a slum.
My house stood as an attractive comfortable villa overlooking Ramla Valley and it was a pleasure to live here, but no longer.
Mepa has approved the building of a multiple apartment block adjacent to and partly around my house. Besides being totally and utterly out of scale with the surrounding properties it has created horrendous effects.
Firstly, it has created a cyclonic wind which has destroyed my front garden and back courtyard garden. I get no peace now whether the wind blows from the North or the South. Secondly, the tall faceless walls have caused my heating systems to malfunction as now the chimneys are affected and send fumes down into the house. It is more costly now to heat the house as hardly any sun can come in on either side of the property.
Thirdly, no sun reaches the roof all winter, thus the house is colder and there is no way I can install solar panels.
Fourthly, the front garden is a disaster all winter, and in parts of it, nothing grows anymore due to strong cyclonic winds which literally lift the earth and throws it against any surface it can find, mainly windows.
It is about time Mepa studies and investigates the relationship with surrounding buildings before it dishes out permits.
The building in question is one of three surrounding buildings that are an eyesore, totally out of scale with other buildings in the district and visually very poorly designed.
Objecting to a planning permit is a joke as one is not listened to and is not allowed to express dissatisfaction with the planning process.
Would anyone now tell me what, if anything can be done about this, since I now have to live with the consequences of Mepa’s in-eptitude? I seem to recall that this present government administration had promised that they were going to change the way Mepa operates.
These kind of planning disasters are strangling our country. Is this what we want to leave our children as a heritage?