GEORGE NEWS - The draft scoping report for a proposed university precinct development at the Garden Route Dam has been made available to the public for comment.
This follows the completion of the rezoning of the land - the George Municipality's property - following enquiries from tertiary institutions with regard to the possible establishment of campuses in George.
A campus with a university and / or research institute covering 13,7ha is the main element of the development which will also include a waterfront commercial development (4,7ha), hotel (1,6ha), medium density residential / group housing (5,5ha), apartments / student housing (4,8ha) and single residential (5,8ha) zones.
An area of 67ha (almost 60%) of the area will be retained as open spaces and will encompass parks and "natural" areas.
According to the draft scoping report compiled by Sharples Environmental Services (SES), a sports oval, big enough for a cricket field or athletics track, and additional sport fields (with international standard rugby / soccer fields) are part of the plans. The residential portions are located on the northwestern and southwestern boundaries of the site (near the existing surrounding residential area). Student housing is proposed to be placed mostly on the eastern side of the development (towards Saasveld).
An application for environmental authorisation as well as for a water use licence application have been launched. Public comment on the water use licence application must be submitted by no later than 19 August, and on the environmental authorisation process by no later by 20 July.
Visit the SES website at to register as an I&AP or contact Betsy Ditcham on 021 554 5195 or at betsy@sescc.net for more information. Postal address: PO Box 447, Milnerton, 7435.
Proposal 'an outrage'
A resident living on a property overlooking the dam, aired her concern to George Herald and said the development is "an outrage" as it is located right on the city's water source. "I fear for the storm water drainage and sewage that could land in the dam during floods. Our houses will look straight into the housing estate. There will be no privacy. It will become a very noisy neighbourhood because this area is like an amphitheatre - you can hear every single conversation people have walking along the trails here."
Water demand
The unhappy resident also questioned water supply capacity with George being permanently on water restrictions. "What will we do if this development and the Sallywood development go ahead?"
According to the scoping report, the estimated average daily water demand of the development will be 3,06 million litres.
Wastewater will gravitate to the existing Glenwood pump station from where it will enter the existing system towards the Outeniqua Waste Water Treatment Works, which is being upgraded to increase capacity. New pump stations will be part of the system that will drain wastewater from the proposed development to the Glenwood pump station.
Notification delivery
Pharaoh is also unhappy that the notification of the development was left in their gate. "This is hardly a responsible way of involving the public in the process for such a massive change. It gives the impression that they just do it because they have to."
Sharples Environmental Services (SES) commented as follows:
SES has been appointed by the George Municipality to conduct the environmental authorisation process for the Garden Route Dam project and are using a number of means to inform the public of the project, the intent being that interested and affected parties (I&APs) have an opportunity to comment on the proposals and the various documents.
We are also engaging with all authorities who may have jurisdiction or issues of concern with regard to the proposal. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, the post office is not open and the background information document (BID) could not be posted.
As such, we therefore personally hand delivered the BID to the properties surrounding the Garden Route Dam, ensuring all Covid-19 safety precautions were taken, i.e. sanitising, wearing of face masks and social distancing, in line with our public participation plan which was approved by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEA&DP).
We are committed to informing people of the development. Apart from personally hand delivering BIDs, we have placed an advertisement in the George Herald and have placed three notices on site informing the public of the proposed development. We have also emailed the BID to as many identified interested and affected parties as well as authorities as possible and have put the various documents on our website for download.
It should be noted that there are a number of opportunities for I&APs to comment on the proposal. We welcome comment from all sectors of the community but more specifically we would like to understand what issues of concern the I&APs may have on the proposal.
A large amount of time and effort has gone into preparing the proposal and reports and investigating the impacts of the proposal on the receiving environment and we want those who may have comments to raise their issues of concern in order for us to address them in a comprehensive manner.
We have just started the first 30 day public advertising process which is the pre-application process. Following this is the application process which has another 30 day commenting period and thereafter is the 30 day public participation process on the environmental impact report. Today marks the 4th day of an approximately 10 month environmental process, providing ample opportunity for I&APS to comment on all the reports.
'We bring you the latest George, Garden Route news'
