Possibly one positive spin-off of the slow start we had, is that now, while we’re away in England and Europe for 5 weeks, we don’t have to worry too much about anything crucial going wrong in our absence. We’re relying on Bernard (our architect) to keep us up to date with progress in the meantime and so far we have learnt that our plans have still not been released from the Johannesburg City Council. Apparently the only thing they are now asking for is a certificate “proving” that the northern boundary of the plot is a park… This is interesting because the park is surely council land and one would imagine that any building inspector could confirm its existence in a single visit? However, continuing with the attitude that “our’s is not to reason why”, Bernard is attempting to track down yet another elusive piece of paper with a special stamp.
Undeterred, the contractor has made more progress in clearing the property and has started marking out foundations. This is what things looked like last week:
View from street to park
Marked out foundation1
Marking Foundation2
Site cleared
home-in-the-making 
The park would almost certainly be Council owned land in which case they should have a survey diagram showing the park boundaries and residential lots surrounding it.
Hi Jacqui
Glad to see you are keeping positive despite the council putting every conceivable obstacle in your way. Perhaps you should be asking them to prove they own the park or you may decide to use some of it………………
Cheers
Fred