Property giants drag NGO to court over land use

PROPERTY giants are dragging a conservancy NGO to court for raising objections against their applications to turn swathes of land north of Joburg into residential and commercial areas.

Century Property Developments and Riversands Developments were out to convince the high Court in Joburg that Greater Kyalami Conservancy’s (GEKCO) objections and appeals were frivolous, meritless and only intended to delay construction of extensions of Riverside View.

In its own papers, GEKCO rejected the application as a ploy to intimidate and dissuade it and the general civil society from exercising the right to object to changes to land use.

Municipalities were mandated to process objections before approving developments. The City of Joburg carried out this work in this matter.

Century and Riversands wanted GEKCO and its chairperson, Kristin Kallesen, ordered to pay R197 million as damages.

The companies maintained in court papers that they lost these millions of rand as a “consequence of the habitual unsubstantiated and mala fide objections and appeals” by GEKCO.

The claimed R197m was inclusive of “escalations in construction costs” due to building delays over months, fees for town planners incurred as a result of objections and lawyer costs.

“The objections were raised by the defendants without any valid grounds and no reasonable person would have raised the same in prevailing circumstances,” the companies said.

Century and Riversands said the fact that all of GEKCO’s objections and appeals were rejected by the City of Joburg proved its case.

The groups owned the land they sought to turn into residential and commercial communities.

These will be new extensions of Riverside View.

GEKCO’s court papers described the application as a bid to muzzle it and other civil organisations from objecting to the companies’ current and future land use applications.

“The plaintiffs do not honestly believe that they have any prospect of recovering the amount of damages claimed from the defendants,” said GEKCO in papers.

GEKCO said the application was an attack on freedom of expression.

The NGO stated that its grounds of objections and appeal included that the development would result in traffic running through an equestrian and agricultural area and affect wetlands, and that the sites were host to various wildlife. |