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Reuters<\/p>\n
Durban is locked in a dispute with the owners of the Suncoast casino over its plans to increase the size of its gaming floor.<\/p>\n
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Durban – The city is locked in a dispute with the owners of the Suncoast casino on Durban\u2019s beachfront over its plans to increase the size of its gaming floor. <\/p>\n
This emerged in an urgent application which came before Durban High Court Judge Themba Sishi earlier this month in which Tsogo Sun KwaZulu-Natal complained it could not take the city\u2019s refusal of its plan on review to the high court. <\/p>\n
This was because the law required that all internal appeal processes be exhausted beforehand and the National Building Regulations Review Board – which falls under the department of trade and industry – had still not heard its appeal, which had been lodged more than a year ago. <\/p>\n
Tsogo Sun\u2019s woes began early last year when it applied to the city to convert restaurant space into gaming and casino space. <\/p>\n
The application was initially turned down because it did not include a \u201cfire design\u201d element. This was rectified but, at the end of February, the city again refused the application, this time citing the Integrated Development Plan drawn up in 2002 for the site, which only authorised 1 250 gaming positions. <\/p>\n
In his affidavit before the court, Tsogo Sun\u2019s director of legal services, Graham Tyrrell, said the next step was to appeal this to the building regulations review board, which it did in May last year. <\/p>\n
By September both the company and the city had filed all papers and the matter was \u201cripe for hearing\u201d. <\/p>\n
But two hearings set down in November were postponed by the board. <\/p>\n
And a third hearing, scheduled for January, was also cancelled because the contract of the chair of the board had expired. <\/p>\n
Tyrrell said the board had said the hearing would resume \u201cas soon as a new chairperson was appointed\u201d and had forwarded to them an advertisement calling for nominations with a closing date of February 22. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut since then no further communication was received. We sent a final letter in April, demanding that the hearing be heard by the end of that month, but received no response,\u201d he said, describing it as \u201cdiscourteous and constitutionally offensive conduct\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have no idea whether the nomination or appointment of a chairperson did, in fact, proceed,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
In the meantime, the company could not proceed with any review of the city\u2019s refusal, or its expansion plans. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are losing significant revenue, we cannot appoint contractors and the costs of construction and refurbishment are escalating. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor the board to dither and delay in this manner is not in anyone\u2019s interest, including the public interest. It is a serious and ongoing violation of our right to administrative action… The facts show a pattern of flagrant disregard for its obligations.\u201d <\/p>\n
Tyrrell said \u201cuncertainty\u201d on this issue prejudiced investment in the province, slowed economic growth and harmed development. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere exists a real risk that our shareholders and investors will relocate the funds earmarked for this project elsewhere with the concomitant loss to the economy of the city and the province,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
An order was taken by consent, in which the board undertook to convene the hearing and to give its ruling \u201cwithin a reasonable time period but no later than 30 days after the conclusion of the hearing\u201d. <\/p>\n
The Mercury<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reuters Durban is locked in a dispute with the owners of the Suncoast casino over its plans to increase the size of its gaming floor. Durban – The city is locked in a dispute with the owners of the Suncoast casino on Durban\u2019s beachfront over its plans to increase the size of its gaming floor. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-21396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}