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eastwoodc@avusa.co.za

PORT Elizabeth restaurateur Mauro Nettl is at the centre of a land- zoning fracas with his neighbours in Walmer, incensed over plans to build a “boutique hotel” and restaurant on the premises of his plush Water Road home.

Neighbours claim granting Nettl the right to build a restaurant on this property will set a trend which will convert the entire peaceful, leafy suburb into “a hub of noise and late-night shenanigans”.

Now the municipality has entered the fray with a mayoral committee decision earlier this month to halt provisional approval for the plans by the housing and land committee until an on-site meeting in January.

Furious neighbours say they have been kept in the dark over the new plans.

“(He) hasn’t engaged with his constituency in any shape or form,” said neighbour Bill Allchurch “It’s about time he told us what he does want and then we can sit down and discuss it.”

Allchurch said there had been numerous objections to the development.

Others said they liked their neighbourhood as it was. Said neighbour Greg Upton: “We just want a quiet street and a quiet neighbourhood but when it gets sold out to business where does it stop?”

But Nettl said he would push ahead with his plans.

“What I’d like is to open a boutique hotel for about 10 guests and a 40-seater restaurant which will be open to the public,” he said.

He scoffed at neighbours calling the area “a quiet neighbourhood”.

“I live on (the corner of) Sixth Avenue (Walmer). You can hear the cars going past and in front of me is Wicker Woods (a restaurant on the opposite corner).”

But DA councillor Elizabeth Trent said the plans were not in keeping with Water Road’s aesthetics.

“Allowing the plans to go ahead would set a trend for others (in the road) to set up similar businesses,” she said, “and with restaurants comes noise pollution.”