Yellowwood Park up in arms over development
The land is currently zoned for education purposes and the application is to rezone a portion of land for residential use.
Yellowwood Park residents are concerned about a proposed development at Yellowwood Park Christian Fellowship (YPCF) which plans to build 130 residential units on the property.
The land is currently zoned for education purposes and the application is to rezone a portion of land for residential use.
The Sun received letters from concerned members of the public regarding the development.
Andrew Vogelsang, a Yellowwood Park resident, raised his concerns. “I foresee all kinds of problems, for both the immediate neighbours as well as parents and children going to the school,” said Vogelsang.
Some of the concerns include:
- Quite often in this type of development, two or more families will share one unit. That means there will be lots of extra cars and taxis congesting the school’s drop-off zone in the morning.
- Implications of a low cost housing development bordering Kenneth Stainbank Nature Reserve. The fence is flimsy, and can be easily scaled.
- A shortage of schools in the area, and long waiting lists of pupils trying to get into local schools. Surely it is better to leave the land zoned for education, so that one day a school may be built on it?
Riaan Thomson is the town planning consultant acting as YPCF’s agent dealing with the application for subdivision and rezoning. “The intended development is planned as a sectional title development where 130 units will vary in size from 60 to 80 m2 within a price range most suited within the area and market demand. It is therefore not low cost housing as colloquially used to refer to government subsidised or public housing and will be aimed at the bonded housing market. Both the YPCF as well as the developer intend to minimise the density of the development while still achieving sufficient numbers of units to make such a development viable. Thus in the architectural design of the development, care was taken to cluster units together in groups of two and three storey buildings to better fit in the surrounding urban fabric,” said Thomson.
In response to how the development will affect surrounding areas, Thomson said as part of the formal application submitted to the eThekwini Municipality, a traffic impact statement was undertaken by a professional transport engineer and to the satisfaction of the eThekwini Transport Authority. The traffic impact statement found that the “development will generate low volumes of traffic and the adjacent roads presently carry low volumes. Thus the development can be accommodated by the local road network without any negative implications.” As for noise, the intended development is not anticipated to generate any more noise than the surrounding neighbourhood and the current school activities.
In reaction to residents’ concerns that 300 families would be housed in the development, Thomson said the land development application cannot determine the exact number of school- going children among the eventual residents or the current capacity of surrounding schools. “eThekwini Municipality has independently undertaken a study to assess the accessibility and capacity of various social facilities (including schools) in the past and have, suggested future densities for various areas. The fact that the municipality, in its preliminary assessments, concluded that the intended development fits within the future intended densities of the area, would suggest that it would not have a negative impact on school capacities.”
Yellowwood Park resident for the past 32 years, Claire Zeeman, is angry about the proposed development. “Neighbours and residents of the area have not been consulted on this development at all – he has not had the decency to pop letters in our post boxes. When we wish to do any alterations to our homes, we have to get our neighbours to sign and agree to the alterations – why has he not done this?” said Zeeman.
According to Thomson, the application process has complied fully with the requirements of the KwaZulu-Natal Planning and Development Act, 2008 (Act.No 6 of 2008). The development application was advertised in both the Ilanga and Mercury newspapers on 4 and 5 September 2014, indicating the closing date for comments as 6 October. Site notices were also displayed on the site from the same date. “Furthermore, all land owners / occupiers within a 100 m distance of the boundary of the application property were notified by registered post sent on 5 September and as per the contact details provided by the municipality from their ratepayer database and municipal property valuation roll information. Proof of all of these notifications can be presented if required.”
Ward 64 Councillor Billie Prinsloo said she had been fielding calls, emails and SMS messages regarding the development and is aware of the development.
An information sharing meeting will be held at Yellowwood Park Christian Fellowship tonight (Monday, 29 September) at 6.30pm.
To lodge written comments, by hand, write to
regional co-ordinator:
Central Region,
Land Use Management Branch,
Ground floor, 166 KE Masinga (Old Fort) Road,
Durban,
or by registered post to PO Box 680, Durban, 4000, or by fax to 031-311-7859, or email Shabnam.Kissoonlall@durban.gov.za by Monday, 6 October.
