Leaders of an Arniston fishing community in Cape Town, South Africa, believe a personal vendetta is behind the court tussle over a piece of prime seaside property in the picturesque town.
The Cape Agulhas Municipality donated the land to the Waenhuiskrans Fishermen’s Union in a resolution taken two years ago.
The property, between the Arniston harbour and the fishers’ community of Kassiesbaai, has become the centre of a dispute in the Western Cape High Court.
According to residents, it’s only about 120m² in area.
Businessman Robert Haarburger – managing director of the Arniston Hotel and Arniston Seaside Cottages – lodged an application last week, arguing that, among other things, the land was registered for public use, was worth R1.5 million, should not just be given away for free and that the municipality had not explored alternative uses for it.
But André Marthinus, chairman of the fishermen’s union, said there was more to it than just concern over what happened to the property.
The union has plans to set up a community heritage centre and construction has begun. Foundations have been laid and walls built, but the work straddles two pieces of land – the piece donated by the municipality and a portion of land owned by the union.
Marthinus alleged that Haarburger was upset about it because a commercial development on which he had been working was brought to a halt by the court in November, 2009. The high court overturned the municipality’s approval for the new business centre and rezoning of the erf – opposite the campsite at the town’s entrance – from residential and transport to business use.
The Supreme Court of Appeal and Constitutional Court later also ruled against Verreweide Eiendomsontwikkeling, headed by Haarburger.
One of the applicants in the court case was the Waenhuiskrans Arniston Ratepayers’ Association, whose chairman, Colin Bird, is a trustee on the Waenhuiskrans Arniston Community Development Trust.
The trust, said Marthinus, was funding the construction of the community heritage centre.
He (Haarburger) doesn’t want that half an erf to be transferred to the community. It’s too small to do anything else with, he said.
Because Robert Haarburger’s development was stopped, and because Colin Bird and Johannes van Zyl are involved in the project, he has a personal vendetta. Now the whole community has to suffer, and that’s just wrong.
Van Zyl, Marthinus said, was the chairman of the development trust and had previously been the chairman of a conservation group that opposed the business centre development.
Fredy Marthinus, a member on the union’s committee, said it was unfair that Haarburger was seeking revenge because, unlike holiday homeowners, the fishing community in Arniston lived in the town year-round and were struggling with unemployment.
A community heritage centre would allow for job opportunities.
Bird said that while the ratepayers’ association had won its court action against Verreweide Eiendomsontwikkeling, he could not say what Haarburger’s intention had been in launching this recent court application.
Haarburger is abroad. Staff at the hotel said he did not want to comment.
Kassiesbaai resident Abraham Johannes Newman, a retired fisherman who’s also on the union’s committee, said that while many in the community depended on Haarburger’s businesses for work, personal ideals and principles were just as important as jobs.
Although tourists walked through the heritage site of Kassiesbaai – a 200-year-old fishing village along the water’s edge, home to more than 130 households living in white stone cottages with green window panels and thatch roofs – locals couldn’t offer them a history of the place or even a cup of tea.
The centre would provide them with an information centre, some office space and a restaurant.
A lot of tourists come through here and we as a community don’t really benefit, said Newman.
The court case is due back in court on July 16.
The four respondents – the union, the development trust and the municipality among them – have yet to submit answering papers.
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