|
PROPERTY NEWS February 2012
Summer has definitely arrived As I write this we already have 35 degrees and it’s only 10.30am. This morning at 7am it was 28 and yes, that is celcius. So the saying is true -when people from the Riebeek Valley go to hell, they take a jersey with them! The property section of the Reporter is my Blog, where I draw on experiences from when I first entered the Valley Property market in 1997. Admittedly the area was quite different then, it was very specifically Riebeek Kasteel and Riebeek West. Ongegeund in the form of “individual title properties” did not exist. It still belonged to PPC and was referred to as PPC village, with it’s huge swimming pool, tennis court, squash court as well as the Cape’s best bowling green, all of which now form The Rugby Training Campus (RPC). The change took place when PPC auctioned off their non business assets, creating investment opportunities for some, in this undiscovered gem … it will take a few years for most people to see the sparkle. In this blog, I write things from the point of an agent who has seen the Valley grow, having started my first office at home. Clients would drive through the villages and stop at the resident agency board, be happy to wait as I changed out of gardening clothes and be interested to find out what was going on in the area. It was however very distinctively “Two Village” politics and so the term Riebeek VALLEY was born. I know we don’t really have a valley but it was better than the Kasteelberg hillbillies. Sometimes I wonder if we have actually progressed and question what our identity is? What should we strive for? How do we want people to remember the Valley. Yes, we offer many culinary delights and a diversity of restaurants but you can only eat so much ! Maybe we need a landowner to build a large pool, together with lifesavers, just like the old days at Willows in the old Transvaal and Hennops out past the lion park with “fufee” slide ( sp?) Families would go there and spend a day enjoying the water and shady trees in a safe environment. One could rent out mountain bikes and have more organized hikes. Are we all hoping that the Kasteel Square will give us an identity? I think some farmer is going to see the value of the next stage of tourism, not just selling produce but the ability to enjoy the countryside, a rural setting, with your family, picnicking at a farm dam. Look at what SPIER has become. The Valley has had good positive growth but there are many crocodiles and definitely some sharks in the moat around the Kasteelberg coming up with all sorts of development proposals which are motivated because someone will get rich. The problem lies with Valley residents who don’t try to secure their investments, who don’t object when things are wrong because, firstly you may get a bad reputation and secondly the belief that “someone else will do it”. The Spatial Development Plan, which just closed for comment, a thick detailed document only available in Afrikaans (the fact that it was Afrikaans is not the problem, the fact that it was not available in English is). I struggled through sections where I had expected to find bizarre designs encouraged by financial rewards. And it was so - vineyards which had specifically been excluded from the urban edge (quoted by consultants acting for the Municipality during a meeting facilitated by Ministers of Local government in 2003) the same vineyards now proposed for almost every conceivable zoning except education. The strangest urban edges drawn around areas just to incorporate them. Who stands to benefit?. And then what can only be hallucinogenically enduced continuation of phase 2 of Ongegund, increasing the number of houses by 420 % #^&*()@ ?!!! So, this then requires formal comment but how many people actually took the time to do so? APATHY breeds discontent ! My wife, Gail, sees what affect this continual struggle to protect the aesthetic appeal of the Valley has on me and because we are different she compares me to Don Quixote with his futile attack on windmills (yes, I am probably just as mad). Maybe she is right but I have always believed that one person can make a change. One just gets tired of fighting for the rights of others and eventually fights no more. When we stop protecting what we have, we will lose our rights altogether and end up with the biggest selection of townhouse developments in one municipal area; a multitude of haphazard developments, where anything goes, incorporating shops in vineyards, building new towns on the edge of a suburb and all of it motivated by the potential financial gain for some (including appointed consultants) and the need to get rate payers to contribute to deteriorating services. This, we have been saying ad nauseum is a huge problem not addressed with each new development. Suddenly it has reached the problem stage. Each subdivision provides the Municipality with a capital contribution of R22000 towards service upgrade. The other day while discussing optimism, a wise friend said, “I am a pessimist, as any positive thing will then come as a surprise…. while if I were an optimist, I could only be disappointed.” I thought about this approach with much joy and quite correctly, it is not about whether the glass is half full or half empty, it is about the glass holding half of the potential contents - half is still better than none!
If there is any way I can help
Call me, Daniel, on 082 8204949 or 022 4481749 or pop in and see me at my offices on the square in Riebeek Kasteel. You’ll find them tucked behind Country Style next door to Aitsa (It’s a good idea to phone first – I’m sometimes out with clients).
RE/MAX Oaktree "In The Valley"
|
|---|
