Residents in the Amberfield Ridge estate in Rooihuiskraal are up in arms over the sale of a piece of municipal land within the estate that had become their own green haven.
The spot that borders about 20 houses had been used as a park for the past decade and has become home to luscious green grass, rabbits and trees.
A building housing low-cost flats is now set to be erected on the land, a move residents are preparing to fight in court.
Kobus Oberholzer, chairman of the Centurion branch of the civic body AfriForum, said this was an example of the arrogance on the part of the Tshwane metro.
“It doesn’t make sense to sell a park within a security estate. The estate has only one entrance and we do not know where the developers will build the entrance to the flats. This piece of land has been zoned as a park.”
Oberholzer said that AfriForum’s lawyers were working to lodge a formal complaint against the closure of the park that would be submitted to the metro within the next week.
A resident of the estate, Andre Jordaan, said a notice was sent to house owners in February, informing them that the piece of land would be closed.
“In March we have received another notice stating that this piece of land will be sold on an auction and that we have until 17 April to lodge our complaints.”
But the auction went ahead and on 23 March the land was sold to the Pretorian Carmien-group for millions of rands, Jordaan said.
“We do not understand this. We thought we had until 17 April to comment.”
Jordaan said he intended selling his property as soon as the new development got underway. “Our properties will lose their value if they started to build flats.”
Neither the estate management nor the metro had been maintaining the land throughout the years – and residents took it upon themselves to create a proper park.
Among them were Herman and Tania Lubbe, who said they had been planting trees and maintaining the grass.
The Carmien-group could not be reached for comment and the Tshwane metro did not reply to our e-mails or voice messages.
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