Shock, anger over land sale

Published May 19, 2015

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Cape Town - A massive piece of prime beachfront property including a Milkwood forest is up for grabs in Hermanus with developers invited to submit a bid before mid-July.

It’s marketed as 46.026 hectares of approved development land at the foot of the Olifantsberg Mountains and adjacent to Hermanus, also referred to as the “Riviera of the South”.

But the advertisement of the offer to bid for the land at Schulphoek, which includes 244 plots, 51 of them on the water’s edge, took many people by surprise including their neighbours - the community of Zwelihle.

Zwelihle Community Development Trust manager Bobby von During said no one had told them about the proposed sale of the land. “The Zwelihle community will fight this to the end. It is totally unacceptable.”

Two years ago the community fought the construction of an upmarket residential complex.

Von During said there had been earlier agreements made that a portion of the land would be used for a sports field, housing and an abalone farm.

The site, according to an earlier report, was transferred in 2010 to Rabcav, a joint venture between Rabie Property and Cavcor Properties, and according to residents then, the plan was that the upmarket beachfront houses would help cross-subsidise low-cost housing in Zwelihle and Mount Pleasant.

“A lot of promises were made that haven’t been kept,” Von During added on Monday.

But Aubrey Miller, chief executive of sealedbid.co.za, an online property tender platform, who has invited the bids, said he was not aware of any concerns.

“All the development rights are in place, so I’m sure if there were any issues, it was resolved some time ago.”

He said there had been massive interest from developers.

“It’s not often you get a place like this coming on to the market - it’s spectacular.”

Miller added that there was an undisclosed reserve price on the development land, and bidders had until 2pm on July 14 to submit a bid.

They were expecting interest from not only local and national developers, but also foreign investors and developers.

He said a 4 000m2 seafront plot in Hermanus sold for approximately R27 million recently, so they were expecting to achieve an excellent sales price for this property.

Rob Fryer, manager of NGO Whale Coast Conservation, said they had several concerns including environmental, social and economic.

“Our main concern would be the Milkwood forest, that it be conserved and rehabilitated because it has become very degraded in recent years.

“We’d also like to see a sensible development setback from the sea and sustainability of the development.”

He said with blinkers on it would appear to be a nice piece of land, but without, and knowing the strong emotions from the people of Zwelihle, it was a different situation.

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