A month after speaking out on the proliferation of luxury housing and golfing estates in the province, Western Cape agriculture minister Cobus Dowry, seems to have done an about-face and approved the multi-billion rand Lagoon Bay Lifestyle development endorsed by former anti-apartheid cleric Allan Boesak.
Other Western Cape political heavyweights linked to the proposed development on the historic Hoogekraal farm at Glentana near George are former ambassador to Washington Franklin Sonn and Judges Nathan Erasmus and Essa Moosa.
Last year, Boesak attended a meeting in the area in an attempt to persuade church leaders and the local community to support the luxury development, which will consist of two golf courses, 900 residential units, a 150-room five-star hotel, a spa and conference and shopping facilities. The developers are Pretoria father and son, Werner and Thys Roux.
But in April this year, Annette Stoltz, a department of agriculture senior manager of land use and soil management, put a spanner in the works when she turned down an application to have the land rezoned for development.
Writing to local land surveyors, she stated that rezoning “is not acceptable to the department from an agricultural point of view” and concluded that the area “is characterised by dairy and cattle farms and the proposed development will change the agricultural character of the area”.
But in a letter dated May 31 2006, to Joyene Issacs, head of the department of agriculture at Elsenberg, Dowry seems to have succumbed, according to insiders, to political pressure and instructs Issacs to override Stoltz’s decision.
Dowry writes: “After due consideration of the relevant facts, I have decided to recommend that the department of agriculture, Western Cape, must support the application [for rezoning]”.
Dowry says the results of soil samples taken by two “independent institutions” appointed by the applicants “clearly indicate that the land is not suitable for agricultural use”.
But a soil evaluation report by JP Nell, of the Institute for Soil, Climate and Water (ISCW), and commissioned by the department, shows otherwise.
Nell found that the study by these two “independent institutions”, referred to by Dowry, “made no effort to use the national Department of Agriculture criteria for high potential and/or unique agricultural land for the Western Cape province”.
Nell also found that “the area that can be considered as high potential agricultural soil (77%) occurs mostly on the high-lying areas of the property. Due to the specific combination of location, climate and soil properties a strong case can even be made that the George area could be considered as unique agricultural land from a national perspective”.
Speaking at the launch of a new agricultural publication in Cape Town in April this year, Dowry supported his environment, planning and economic development colleague Tasneem Essop’s strong stance against the development of luxury housing and golf estates.
“On a daily basis I am approached by developers who bring proposals and we are provided with promises of the huge economic impact for the province, the black economic empowerment benefits and the job-creation potential,” he said.
Dowry explained that only 18,9% of land in the Western Cape was arable and that this placed “a huge burden on us as the government to protect the land, as this is our heritage. As minister of agriculture I have done my utmost to protect agricultural land and I will most definitely do so in future.”
Neither Dowry nor Essop could be reached before the Mail & Guardian went to print.