Time to OBJECT!
Once again we need your objection to be made.  You have already performed at least one and we need you to download the following objection here : http://www.mediafire.com/?jzm1dzwi1wf .  If you agree, "Cut & Paste" the information into an email.  Also, please add your name & other info and further comments to it. 

You then need to email it to: lindsay@dougjeff.co.za and CC savesharkbay@gmail.com

You have until the 10th of March 2010 @ Midnight. 

Together, we can stop this development!

February 9th 2010
Shark Bay Issues made simple!
 
Following many enquiries as to the current state of play regarding the proposed Shark Bay development and real concerns at the fact that this thing just will not go away the process is explained briefly below:
 
The EIA process following application by the proposer of the development consists basically of two steps. The first step is the so-called “Scoping Phase” in which the applicant for the development permission is required to identify key issues to be investigated and to map out the process to be followed in carrying out the EIA, including the identification for example of the subject experts to be retained on the team to do the investigation. This is the process that was underway until October 2009. Contributors to this site, environmental bodies and community organisations registered well over a thousand objections to the content and deficiencies of the Scoping Report provided at the conclusion of the scoping phase by the professional team appointed by the applicant. Informed by these comments and the professional team’s responses the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning gave the go-ahead on 9 October 2009 for the next phase, namely the EIA investigation itself, subject to an extensive list of explicit requirements and obligations upon the applicant to inform the decision the Department will have to make as to whether or not to grant the required environmental permission in terms of NEMA for development of the restante of Oostewal 292 or not. These requirements substantially address the many concerns and deficiencies that came out in the popular participation process and are set out in the letter from DEA & DP dated 9 October 2009 posted by us on this website, and provide a basis against which the Environmental Impact Assessment Report produced in the EIA phase is to be adjudicated. The questions that need to be addressed by Interested and Affected Parties are essentially:
 
1.         Has the EIA investigation and Report addressed the key issues identified for attention in the Scoping Report and the Department’s letter of 9 October 2009 in an objective and unbiased way as required by the law?; and
2.         Has a sufficient environmental case been made for development of the site in accordance with the proposal of the applicant for the development of the Restante of Oostewal 292 otherwise variously referred to as the Baja Sardinia/Shark Bay/ Klein Oostewal development?
 
The “Open Day” scheduled for Friday 12 February 2009 between 15h00 and 20h00 at the Langebaan Library Auditorium is a part of the required popular participation process for the EIA phase at which the consultants will be available to respond to questions and discuss their draft EIA Report available online on the Doug Jeffery website and for viewing at the Public Library (Langebaan) and the Municipal Offices (Langebaan). Please be there and have your say! Thereafter there will be time until 10 March 2010 for submission of considered written comment.
 
2010 has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Biodiversity. South Africa’s responsibilities and intentions in terms of  its own Year of Biodiversity and particularly as a founding member of the Ramsar convention on wetlands (Langebaan Lagoon is of course a registered Ramsar international wetland) were set out in a speech by our own Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs on 1 February 2010. Let us as concerned citizens not fail in our duty in this of all years to resist gratuitous development in the unique Langebaan lagoon wetland biosphere.
 
As before we encourage concerned citizens to keep in touch with this website, engage with the EIA process and make your very many voices heard. Development of the Klein Oostewal site on the shore of Langebaan Lagoon has been successfully, consistently and vehemently opposed on reasoned and motivated grounds by the Langebaan community, conservation authorities and others since the 1980’s. “

February 7th 2010

"The Langebaan Action Group has always stood for objectivity and transparent due process in the matter of the adjudication in terms of statute of the Shark Bay/Klein Oostewal development proposal. I therefore gratefully acknowledge the error brought to my attention in connection with our statement on the website accompanying the posting on the site of the full original text of the letter E12/2/3/2-F2/7-0460/08 dated 9 October 2009 directed to the proposers of the Shark Bay development in respect of "ACCEPTANCE OF THE SCOPING REPORT("SR") AND PLAN OF STUDY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT ("EIA") FOR THE PROPOSED SHARK BAY DEVELOPMENT ON THE REMAINDER OF THE FARM OOSTEWAL NO,292, OFF OOSTEWAL ROAD IN LANGEBAAN". The letter in question did in fact not emanate from the "MEC" as incorrectly indicated in our statement but from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, and was signed on behalf of the Head of Department as those who engaged with the full text of the original letter accompanying our statement and released in the spirit of transparency would immediately have gathered.

We regret this error and continue to encourage inputs on matters of fact and perception in the interest of enriching objective debate toward a resolution of the issue of the development of the Restante of Oostewal 292 that has been a recurring and emotive theme in the Langebaan community since the 1980's.

Johan Ackron
Convenor: Langebaan Action Group" 

URGENT FEBRUARY 2nd 2010 [Edited]

Please see for more info after reading this : DEADP Response and conditions set out

"Regular participants in the activities of this site who have registered as Interested and Affected Parties (I & AP's) would by now have received notice of yet another step in the seemingly interminable efforts by the proposed developers of the Klein Oostewal/Shark Bay property on the south-east shores of Langebaan Lagoon to force their proposals through in the face of consistent and vehement opposition by the community, conservationists and other concerned citizens.

The draft Scoping Report setting out the EIA process to be followed was approved by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning on 9 October 2009 subject to a host of requirements and obligations to be addressed, and reflecting many of the concerns that we who have opposed this development have raised since 2006. Most significantly the Department's letter points out to the applicant as we have on numerous occasions that "....the property is earmarked (variously) as West Coast National Park and Langebaan Nature Area, Buffer Conservation, Ecological Corridor, Conservation 1 or as Critical Biodiversity Area ... and it can be concluded that all the forward planning documentation for the area (has) envisaged the protection from development on the property under discussion..." . We have posted the full text of the Department's letter on this website. As we have from the start maintained, the proposed developer must amongst a host of other things prove need in terms of Section 32 of the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA) for development of the site, which he has thusfar failed to do, and will for a variety of reasons already reflected in our comment since 2006 have great difficulty in doing.

The Scoping Report and these specific additional requirements reflected in the Department's letter now form the context within which a detailed EIA process is to take place. This is required to comprise a comprehensive popular participation process as well. We request that all who wish to be part of this process and support us in our ongoing opposition to attempts to further despoil the Shark Bay area on our lagoon shore register immediately as before as Interested and Affected Parties (I & AP's) to receive the relevant documentation. To do so please send your name and contact details to:

Doug Jeffery Environmental Consultants
(Attention: Lindsay Speirs)
P.O.Box 44
Klapmuts
7625
Republic of South Africa

Telephone:           +27 21 875 5272

Facsimile:              +27 21 875 5515

e-Mail:                    lindsay@dougjeff.co.za

If you prefer to receive your documentation by physical mail rather than electronically we urge you to request that it be sent to you by registered post. It would probably be advisable to do this anyway to ensure that you receive all critical information in hard copy.

The Langebaan Action Group is as before arranging to facilitate submission of comment on the (Draft) Environmental Impact Report to the environmental consultants before the deadline of 10 March 2010.

Keep informed and participate as before via this website and continue to assist us to put a stop to gratuitous development of what remains of our natural lagoon shores.

Johan Ackron
Convenor: Langebaan Action Group"

Welcome to the site for objecting to the proposed development of Oesterwal 292 - known to many people as Shark Bay or Klein Oesterwal. Recently the original Section 28 Application under the name of "Bahia Sardinia" which was sent back to the developers and were instructed to re-apply under Section 24 of NEMA (National Environmental Management Act) under their new name "Shark Bay!" 

Located in Langebaan on the doorstep of the West Coast National Park, in South Africa, this beautiful part of the lagoon plays host to 1000's of visitors each year seeking peace and tranquility in safe, warm water or beautiful flower meadows.

The Shark Bay site has a deep ongoing history of court cases, objections, planning applications and environmental issues.

The aim of this website is to provide comprehensive and non political views about the proposed destruction of one of South Africa's prime environmental areas.

The Save Shark Bay website has since the original application stayed away from discussing the person behind the scheme but lately the owner, Riccardo Scappelini, has been voicing his opinions openly and we now see no reason but to refer to the individual and no longer the "company."

Langebaan is currently confronted with a development proposal from Riccardo's Dormell Properties 391 (Pty) Ltd operating as Shark Bay for the development of in excess of 100 elite residential housing erven in the buffer zone to the south of Stompneusrots between the town and the West Coast National Park and on the south eastern shore of Langebaan Lagoon - a Ramsar site of international conservation significance. This land is currently reflected in the proposed local 2007 Zoning Scheme as agricultural land and in the 2004 Spatial Development Framework still current as buffer conservation land category 2. Prior similar proposals in respect of the same land on the part of earlier developers have been opposed and interdicted by Order of Court.

The NEW proposal has already met with significant opposition from residents, the West Coast National Park, West Coast Biosphere, the Langebaan Rate Payers Association and the National Parks Trust. With approximately 50% of the available erven in Langebaan town vacant, and a large tract of vacant and disused agricultural land within the urban edge within the centre of Langebaan, the development would mean the expansion southward of the urban edge into a sensitive area when other less environmentally and aesthetically sensitive options exist, most notably to the north and east of the town should the need arise.

Objectors maintain that the development would constitute a clear instance of unwarranted urban sprawl, thus flying in the face of the intent and letter of the Provincial Spatial Development Framework whose imperative amongst others is toward in-fill development in the interests of the conservation of the biosphere and of containing the resource costs of providing infrastructure and other services.

As things stand at present it appears that the rapid development of erven in Greater Langebaan has led to a situation where the construction of housing on existing vacant erven could result in a doubling of the functional population of the town – and that without setting out a single new erf. This would have severe implications, not least for the water resources in the area that lies on a semi-desert coastline which already is particularly vulnerable to the stresses of climate change.

The land has in the past been identified for possible incorporation in the West Coast National Park, thereby containing the southern extremity of the town to the north of the Stompneusrots mini-escarpment. Objectors are adamant that the EIA process currently underway should clearly interrogate the need for the development at all relative to other softer options consistent with sound environmental and physical planning and provide a clear and convincing motivation for its incorporation into the built environment rather than into the National Park where it would be accessible to all, and particularly to future generations. Exotic development on the West Coast is eroding the once unique character of this area and the sense of place of the south-eastern shore of Langebaan Lagoon is now directly under threat. When will the destruction of our unique South African heritage stop?

Of great concern must be the fact that development proposals are currently being entertained and adjudicated piecemeal for the Greater Langebaan area outside of the context of an Environmental Management Plan such as provided for in terms of the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA).

Over the next few days, weeks & months, this site will become the site for all things to do with this objectionable application.

Please take time to 1) REGISTER and 2) OBJECT to this terrible abuse of our natural land.

If you have any questions, please make a posting in the FORUM and we will endeavour to answer them for you.

Regards
The SaveSharkBay.org team