The Hermanus Ratepayers Association share some of the concerns raised by the broader community around the lack of stakeholder consultation prior to the award of the De Mond and one other tender to Point Caravan Resorts (PCR). We believe a tender process that enabled adequate stakeholder engagement in developing the overall site development concept would have been more appropriate. Such process would also give effect to the intention of the legal prescripts guiding the application of tender processes for public land.
We, the HRA Executive strongly expressed our concerns in a letter of objection to the Overstand Municipality (OM), emphasised further in follow-up communications. This resulted in the HRA being afforded the opportunity to discuss our concerns directly with the Municipal Manager and other members of property administration. We had an open and frank discussion that resulted in OM agreeing for us to engage directly with Point Caravan Resorts (PCR), as the appointed lessor.
Additionally, we have explored the tender process followed by the municipality and sought senior council legal input. It is our opinion that the public participation process provided by the Overstrand Municipality (OM) is insufficient, but the legal advice we received indicates that the process could be argued as being consistent with general practice followed in municipal tender practices and would be difficult to challenge legally.
The site is on “Crown Land” and any development needs to be consistent with the confines and restrictions of the original grant. These restrictions are onerous effectively restricting land use to affordable holiday accommodation and recreational facilities, ultimately restricting density and the development footprint. The bid document tender specifications reflected these conditions, so ultimate approval of a site plan by the OM would require full adherence to the Crown Land grant conditions.
This site has now been unused for 14 years and we are concerned that a further delay in its development will result in unnecessary negative consequences, namely: Further loss in rental revenue for our municipality; Site remaining undeveloped attracting undesirable squatting, vagrancy and other social challenges; Concern that National government could insist on the land be developed for affordable housing.
Within this context we, the HRA, have proposed that consideration be given to following a pragmatic approach of rather playing an active role in participating towards the site plan development process. We proposed that this can be achieved through negotiation between the developer, the Municipality and members of our community that are appropriately skilled in such developments (e.g. Architects, Engineers, Urban planners and environmentalists). This will ensure a development outcome that is more acceptable to our community. In this regard we had preliminary engagements with both the Municipality and the successful tenderer, Point Caravan Resorts (PCR) to explore this approach.
HRA also had other bilateral engagements with other entities (represented as a Steering Committee) that believed the tender process should be legally challenged in the High Court. These discussions resulted in representatives of the affiliates of the Steering Committee agreeing to join us in exploratory engagements with PCR to reach an agreement on how to proceed. Unfortunately, the formal follow-up meeting scheduled with PCR had to be cancelled, as agreement could not be reached on a particular pre-condition
We understand that the affiliate entities have now decided to institute legal proceedings in the High Court to set aside the tender awards. These legal challenges will probably result in all development being put on hold, at this time making any further engagement superfluous. We have informed the affiliate entities that HRA will not join them in the legal process but will also not stand in the way of their pursuit of a legal challenge to the tender process(es).
In conclusion, we the HRA Executive, believe that through a pragmatic approach of active participation in the process, it would be possible to ensure that the site plan and ultimate development responds effectively to our community needs and preferences, ensuring environmental integrity and sustainability while also providing much needed holiday and recreational facilities and a rental income to our municipal coffers.
We still hope that common sense will prevail and that the parties instituting legal action will be able to reach a mutually acceptable agreement negating the need to follow through fully with a costly and long legal process. Ultimately, we hope an agreement can be reached to enable the much-needed development to proceed.
