Lakes Eco & Golf Estate

Pros and cons of the application to amend the Structure (or Guide) Plan

One has until 4 April to voice one’s opinion on the Lakes’ application to have the Structure Plan amended from “Agriculture and Forestry to Township” use. There are basically three reasons given by the developer and others in favour of the proposals, but the issues are complex and cannot be boiled down to simplistic phrases such as “job creation”, “alien clearance” and “increase in property values”.

Yes, jobs are needed and the developer claims that 4000 would be created in the construction phase (over 6 years this would be about 700 people at any time) and that that there would be about 500 permanent jobs. But where would all these workers come from? Even now Geelhoutvlei Timbers ferries people in daily from Thembaletu, and Mandalay brings workers weekly from Oudtshoorn. Recent surveys of Smutsville show that very few job-seekers are unable to find work. Housing and land are just as urgently needed as jobs and a huge influx of workers from other parts of the country would only make the problem worse, especially as there is no provision in the Lakes’ proposals for worker housing. If land outside the Lakes’ 1010 hectare estate were to be acquired for housing Lakes’ workers, the social and environmental impacts on the area would be even greater than envisaged in this application. And creation of jobs cannot be isolated from what the jobs create – in this case an exclusive estate while the country needs integrated communities. Would the job creation argument hold if a chemical plant, taking up one-tenth the space, was being proposed?

Yes, alien vegetation needs to be cleared but the developer purchased the property knowing that it had alien invaders, the purchase price of R7m reflected this, and the responsibility of clearing, and the cost per hectare, is the same for the developer as for any other land-owner. Now he claims that in order to finance alien clearance the property must be developed at a density of more than one residential unit per hectare, plus golf courses, hotel and airstrip – in that case, maybe the environment would be better off covered in wattle, than with a town stretching from Swartvlei to the Outeniquas. Connected with this is the argument that the land has been so “degraded” that the only option is township development, but if this were valid it would be a green-light to all land-owners to neglect property to such an extent that development became “the only answer” – hardly sustainable in theory or in practice.

Yes, property values might increase but even if they did, what good is that to those who want to continue to live and work on their present properties? Sell-up and buy a flat? Sell-up and move to the Karoo? Increase one’s debt to the bank with a bigger bond? And property values might not appreciate – the increase in road use, road dust, road noise, aircraft noise, security problems and irreversible change to the rural surroundings might well have the opposite effect.

Think carefully, and send your views to the Chief Town Planner, George Municipality, Bloemhof Centre, York Street, George, 6530 or e-mail to stadsbeplanning@george.org.za before 4 April 2005.