Sol Kerzner's Leeukoppie estate to be developed

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14-09-2016
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IOL Property
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Cape Town city council has relaxed its urban edge boundary in Hout Bay and agreed to the felling of 45-year-old pine trees to allow hotel mogul Sol Kerzner to build an upmarket estate of 50 houses on the slopes of the Klein Leeukop mountain.

The Municipal Planning Tribunal (MPT) gave its consent yesterday for the consolidation and subdivision of four erven comprising the 25ha Leeukoppie Estate off Victoria Road, to be developed for residential use.

Kerzner bought the property for R2.25 million in 1983.

City council planning officials said it was an "anomaly" that the property in question was zoned for single residential use, despite falling outside the urban edge when such property would be zoned as rural, agricultural or open space.

MPT chairman David Daniels noted that the Kerzner Estate application was the first time that the tribunal had been asked to approve development outside the municipal Spatial Development Framework (SDF) and the Southern District Plan (SDP).

"This application sets a precedent and it is important we do it properly," he said.

The tribunal agreed with the city council's planning officials that there were "site specific circumstances" to justify the deviation from the urban edge.

These included already existing developments on two of the three sides of the Leeukoppie Estate.

The tribunal noted that the property was one of the few outside the urban edge that is not part of the proclaimed World Heritage Site area for the peninsula mountain chain.

While the Hout Bay Residents Association did not object to the development proposal, 10 property owners from the neighbouring Mount Rhodes Residents Association Trust did.

They said the application should be rejected because it did not fall within the city council's development frameworks and policies.

Other concerns included the impact of the construction, access to the estate, the capacity of the sewerage infrastructure and the potential degradation of biodiversity.

None of the objectors turned up to present their arguments to the tribunal yesterday.

Town planner Geoff Underwood, who represented Kerzner Estate, said Kerzner had no intention of developing the Leeukoppie Residential Estate beyond the proposed 50 homes which will range in size from 1000m2 to 1600m2.

"Our client wanted to show respect to the neighbours on both sides.

"The houses will nestle on the landscape and be visually unobtrusive. There is visual congruence and compatibility with the surrounding areas and the environment is not impacted," said Underwood.

The houses would be laid out in a horseshoe shape around a park and internal roads.

A home owners association would be established to manage the development.

"It is ecologically separate from the Table Mountain National Park and is not designated or intended to be an ecological area," he said.

While the property was in an area prone to fire, the city council's planning department said in its report that it was satisfied that the layout and design of the estate were in keeping with veldfire planning guidelines.

The harvesting of the pine plantation would also remove a potential fire risk.

According to a report submitted to the tribunal, tree felling was an inevitable part of the development process – the plantation was mature and needed to be harvested any way.

The city council's legal adviser, Fiona Ogle, said the tribunal did not have the jurisdiction to amend the city's urban edge and that any proposed amendments would have to be addressed in future reviews of the SDF.