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| NEW HOME: An artist's impression of the temple |
April 20, 2014: AN eight-year battle to build a Sikh gurudwara (temple) in Sandton has finally ended in victory for businessman Harbinder Sethi Singh.
He faced numerous objections from the Parkmore Residents’ Association in Sandton over the years to the building of the temple as well as prayer services.
He finally got approval from the City of Johannesburg for rezoning a residence to a place of worship and has raised R15-million for the Gurudwara Sahib in the heart of Sandton—a first for Gauteng.
Singh was born in East Africa and moved to South Africa with his family. He now lives in Tanzania but often visits Johannesburg.
“A huge burden has been lifted off my shoulders and I am looking forward to building a big, beautiful temple for our devotees. The land on 4th Street, Parkmore, belonged to my family.
“1 decided to donate it to the building of a Gurudwara for the Sikh community. But I never imagined we would have to endure the struggle we had to bear for this dream to become a reality,” he said.
He said building would start in about 60 days and the temple would accommodate 50 worshippers.
Nthatisi Mondingoane, the City of Johannesburg’s spokesman, said an application for rezoning was made in August last year, but it was withdrawn because of restrictive conditions of title.
‘The temple was forced to first undertake an application for the removal of restrictive conditions of title. A planning committee meeting on April 1 approved this application,” he said.
The executive manager of the Parkmore Community Association, Brian Robertson, said 91 residents objected to the building because of how the process was managed. “We objected to the fact that Singh said the building would be a house and then proceeded to build the temple and built over the building line.
“Singh then decided to build the temple with three domes. We objected to this because it did not fit into the aesthetic look of the rest of the buildings in the area.
“We also asked that he ensure the acoustics don’t cause a disturbance and no cooking is done outside.”