Remove illegal structures and submit plans, court tells Marble Towers owners

Sowetan · 🇿🇦 public South Africa · May 28, 2026 · 537 words · By Koena Mashale

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What to know about Remove illegal structures and submit plans, court tells Marble Towers owners

Story audio is generated using AI Illegal structures built around the Marble Towers building must be removed from municipal land and properly approved by the city before they can operate again, the Johannesburg high court has ruled.

Claims checked 12

Techniques found 0

Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage

Left0%

Center80%

Right20%

5 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Why it matters

In a judgment handed down on Thursday, the court ordered the owners of Marble Towers in the Joburg CBD to immediately remove all structures built on municipal property, pavements and road reserves, while also forcing them to submit building plans within 20…

Common ground

The ruling follows an urgent court bid by Goldenrod Group, the owner of Marble Towers on Rahima Moosa Street, to stop the City of Johannesburg from demolishing container structures and informal trading spaces erected outside the building.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

Follow-up questions

What concrete event or decision sits underneath the headline: Remove illegal structures and submit plans, court tells Marble Towers owners?
What evidence would most clearly confirm or weaken the claim that The court said the municipality would still need to obtain proper legal authorisation before carrying out demolitions?
What should readers watch for in the next update to know whether the story is changing?

open_in_new Read the original article: https://www.sowetan.co.za/news/2026-05-28-remove-illegal-structures-and-submit-p…

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 12 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 6

schedule Pending 2

help Insufficient Evidence 2

info Single Source 1

verified Verified 1

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Claim 1: “The court said the municipality would still need to obtain proper legal authorisation before carrying out demolitions.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 2: “Adams said the National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act clearly prohibits anyone from erecting structures without prior written approval from a municipality.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence was found in the provided search results to confirm the specific statement attributed to Judge Adams regarding the National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act.

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Claim 3: “The city attempted to destroy illegal structures on the land, but also retrieve R14m owed to them in unpaid rates, taxes, water, and electricity.”

CORROBORATED

Web search results explicitly mention that Mayor Dada Morero revealed Marble Towers owes the city R14 million for rates, taxes, and electricity, coinciding with the demolition operations.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Zama zamas are illegal artisanal miners in South Africa who occupy closed or operational mines to mine for minerals such as gold, iron ore, coal, and manganese. The term zama zama loosely translates t…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zama_zama

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Cape Town is the legislative capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's second-largest city by population, afte…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Sandton Library is a public library within Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa. It opened in 1994. It is part of the City of Johannesburg Library and Information Services' pub…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandton_Public_Library

+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 4: “The ruling follows an urgent court bid by Goldenrod Group, the owner of Marble Towers on Rahima Moosa Street, to stop the City of Johannesburg from demolishing container structures and informal trading spaces erected outside the building.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple independent news sources (eNCA and other web results) confirm that Goldenrod Group, the owner of Marble Towers, filed an urgent bid to stop the demolition of container structures.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Court dismisses Marble Towers bid to stop demolition. The ruling comes as Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero intensifies his efforts to demolish illegal structures in the inner city as part of a broader l…
https://www.ewn.co.za/2026/05/29/court-urges-due-process-as-…

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web search NEUTRAL — The High Court in Johannesburg has dismissed an urgent interdict application brought by the owners of Marble Towers building to stop the city from demolishing illegal and unsafe structures erected wit…
https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/bid-to-halt-marble-towers-…

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web search NEUTRAL — The court has also instructed Goldenrod Group to stop any further construction on the building. Container structures attached to Marble Towers have been found to violate building and fire safety regul…
https://www.enca.com/news-top-stories/court-orders-marble-to…

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Claim 5: “Illegal structures built around the Marble Towers building must be removed from municipal land and properly approved by the city before they can operate again, the Johannesburg high court has ruled.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple web search results confirm the Johannesburg High Court's ruling regarding the removal of illegal structures at Marble Towers from municipal land.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Johannesburg is a large city in Gauteng Province of South Africa. It was established as a small village controlled by a Health Committee in 1886 with the discovery of an outcrop of a gold reef on the …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Johannesburg

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Johannesburg ( joh-HAN-iss-burg, US also -⁠HAHN-, Afrikaans: [jʊəˈɦanəsbœrχ] ; Xhosa: eGoli [ɛˈɡɔːli]; Zulu: iGoli [îˈɡóːli]), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg or "The City of Gold", is the most po…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannesburg

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Marble Palace (French: Palais de Marbre) is a palace and historic building in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, situated atop a hill in the Ngaliema commune within the residential neighb…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_de_Marbre

+ 3 more evidence sources

info

Claim 6: “Judge Leicester Adams said the owners had been aware of the city’s enforcement action since 2022 but failed to comply with repeated notices ordering them to regularise the structures.”

SINGLE SOURCE

While the general context of the raid and non-compliance is mentioned in web results, the specific quote and timeline attributed to Judge Leicester Adams regarding 2022 are not corroborated by multiple independent sources in the provided evidence.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — May 19, 2026 ... Today's raid of the notorious Marble Towers follows days of demolitions along Small Street, where illegal structures operating as businesses ...
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYhIstvnUQ4/?hl=en

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web search NEUTRAL — Mar 22, 2026 ... ... Marble Towers After R14 Million Debt to City of ... If the owner fails to comply, the city may then take lawful enforcement action.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DWN7oU2EekI/

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web search NEUTRAL — inequalities were found in Fall River, where the dominance of mill-owners in local politics drove reformers to seek State assistance to improve the mill ...
https://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/ke…

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Claim 7: “Goldenrod Group was also ordered to pay the city’s legal costs.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 8: “the court ordered the owners of Marble Towers in the Joburg CBD to immediately remove all structures built on municipal property, pavements and road reserves, while also forcing them to submit building plans within 20 days.”

CORROBORATED

The SAFLII record specifically mentions the order to remove structures encroaching upon municipal property, pavements, and road reserves. Other news sources confirm the court order against the owners.

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+ 3 more evidence sources

verified

Claim 9: ““The applicant shall, within 72 hours of this order, cordon off and/or seal all structures identified by the city as non-compliant; ensure that such structures are not occupied or accessed by any person,” Adams ruled.”

VERIFIED

The specific quote regarding the 72-hour window to cordon off or seal non-compliant structures is directly cited in a news report from The Citizen.

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web search NEUTRAL — “The applicant shall, within 72 hours of this order, cordon off and/or seal all structures identified by the city as non-compliant.
https://www.citizen.co.za/news/marble-towers-cordoned-off-72…

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web search NEUTRAL — WB Annapurna Bhandar Online Application Status With Applicant ID. After clicking the search button, you can see the application status.This SMS provides you with the applicant ID of your application. …
https://www.wbgov.org/lakshmir-bhandar-application-status

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web search NEUTRAL — An online Minecraft seed map viewer and seed finder that helps you locate biomes and structures and find best seeds.
https://mcseedmap.net/

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Claim 10: “The court interdicted the company from continuing with any building, construction or installation work at the property.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple sources confirm the court ordered Goldenrod Group to stop any further construction or installation of structures at the property.

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web search NEUTRAL — The court has ordered that the applicants, GoldenRod Group stop any construction or installation of building structures on the property. It also ordered that the group must within 72 hours, cordon off…
https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/bid-to-halt-marble-towers-…

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web search NEUTRAL — The Goldenrod Group was also ordered to immediately stop any further construction or installation of structures at Marble Towers and prevent the occupation of structures identified as non-compliant.
https://www.ewn.co.za/2026/05/29/court-urges-due-process-as-…

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web search NEUTRAL — The court found that the owners, Goldenrod Group, failed to obtain approved building plans from the City and did not prove why an urgent interdict against the municipality should be granted.
https://www.yfm.co.za/2026/05/28/high-court-declares-marble-…

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Claim 11: “The court found the structures were illegal because no building plans had been submitted to or approved by the city.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple sources confirm the court found the structures illegal because the Goldenrod Group failed to obtain approved building plans from the City.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Marble Hill is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Although once part of Manhattan Island, a large modern shipping canal was dug to its south over a small earlier …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Hill,_Manhattan

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Marble Towers is a skyscraper in the Central Business District of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was built in 1973 and is 32 storeys tall. The building has an eight-storey parking garage attached …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Towers

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The walls of Constantinople (Turkish: Konstantinopolis Surları; Greek: Τείχη της Κωνσταντινούπολης) are a series of defensive stone walls that have surrounded and protected the city of Constantinople …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walls_of_Constantinople

+ 3 more evidence sources

help

Claim 12: “On 6 May 2025, the City directed the applicant to submit building plans in respect of the container structures erected on its property – it failed to comply.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence was found in the provided search results to confirm the specific date of May 6, 2025, or the specific directive issued on that date.

info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.