By Babalo Ndenze

Building plans approved by Buffalo City Municipality have slumped dramatically by more than 50% in two years, a trend attributed to the global recession.

But despite the drop, local building firms and hardware stores said they had noticed positive signs of growth in recent months.

During the 2007/2008 financial year the municipality said it had approved 3 325 building plans worth more than R1.3 billion.

However, during the last financial year, which ended in June, this figure decreased by almost 2 000 approved plans to 1 414.

Despite the overall decrease, Beacon Bay was the suburb with the most applications.

“(During the last financial year) 1 414 residential building plans were approved by the council, (including) 989 building plans for low-cost housing for Reeston, with an estimated value of R31 million ,” said BCM spokesperson Sam Ngwenya.

Ngwenya said Beacon Bay was one suburb that showed the most growth in terms of plans approved over the past year.

“There are 178 building plans approved for Beacon Bay with an estimated value of R73 192 592 ,” said Ngwenya, adding that the estimated value of approved building plans for the whole of BCM in the past financial year stood at more than R822m .

Building companies and hardware stores said the slump in building applications had coincided with a drop in business.

Craig Bretherton of Burmeisters said the decrease in building applications was evident in the demand for building material.

He said the “deep recession” was partly to blame for the slump in residential building.

“We were in a deep recession and in the building industry there was a huge reduction in approvals.

“But over the past two months there has been a slight recovery. Building material turnover is up in the last two months,” said Bretherton.

He said the market was showing some recovery, but it was nowhere near where it was a year ago.

Source: Daily Dispatch