Simon’s Town Real Estate News

What’s Happening In Simon’s Town?

Well, the seasons are changing and the evenings are getting cooler but we still have some lovely days, Elmarie’s book club became a wine club, the successful Navy festival broke all records, the Argus Cycle tour saw many bicycles passing our village and real estate sales are slower.

Here’s a few tidbits of news that may interest you

• A fellow Simon’s Town resident suggested that we create an alternative by-pass route and although not a new idea but still an interesting idea. According to Nicky Holderness the idea has merit in time of crisis. Another say, “I think this is actually a busted flush!”
• “Although not unexpected the latest interest rate hike came, like always, as a shock to our highly indebted nation. It’s no wonder when you consider that the cumulative impact of an increase of 450 basis points since June 2006 has upped the monthly repayment on a mortgage of R1-million by R3200. To paraphrase Tito — it’s belt tightening time”. Kabous le Roux iAfrica.com
• Thanks Kabous; the real estate market is quiet and the agents are all waiting for an upwards turn but it might get worse before we can expect better days. While we wait for the buyers we decided to publish a good news Newspaper, called Coffee News, promoting your Simon’s Town homes for sale. This fun publication is available every week at the local restaurants and also gets delivered to homes in the area.
• Have you heard of the Simon’s Town Hawks? Basically the people with the caring and open eyes. They are the Simon’s Town residents who see things that they don’t like and do not want in our village and they make an effort to resolve these issues. The way to do it is to empower us as a group to amplify and coordinate the process to resolve the issues. I have created a forum for you to add your concerns. I believe this will help our “hawks”.
• We had nasty graffiti on the bus stop to Boulders beach and Bay Primary was asked to be creative. They did an amazing job and added colourful penguins to the bus stop. I know that some people don’t like penguins that much but I did not realize that they will go to the extreme to paint the bus stop white again. The STcivic association is following up to get the bus shelter repainted.
• I noted that the City plans to resolve most of valuation objections by end of June 2008. Interesting. Let’s hope they can do it. When ready I will send you the average valuation stats per suburb. For what it’s worth. I prefer to use the average selling price per square meter to establish some idea of your property’s value and then compensate for issues that will inflate the value.
• Cell Phone Reception: This is issue was voted as the top issue in a recent poll. Vodacom, Nicki Holderness and they Navy are working on a solution to erect a reception tower at Joe Maseko’s. Unfortunately Public Works need to say yes because they are the owners of all Navy buildings. And that may take many moons. Another out of the box suggestion; why not erect the tower at Roman Rock Light House, there’s sun panels and it’s out of the way and it’s inline of sight?
• On a personal note:
  • I decided to bury the hatchet and apologized to Andre at Salty Sea Dog for the unfortunate article I wrote on his restaurant. I did it because I wanted to. Thanks Andre for your forgiveness.
  • Supporting the local businesses: Never did I realise that a book club can also become a wine club and that is how I learned about a fine wine sold by a local resident and liquor store owner. Read the story here. Read the story here.
• Business to Business meeting: If you run a business or do business in Simon’s Town why not attend our one hour get together every fourth Wednesday from 08:00 till 09:00 at the Sweetest Thing. We meet in an informal environment to discuss different businesses and you get the change to promote your business. More…

To conclude I believe these wise words from Kabous says it all. At least for the optimists:

The economy is expected to grow by ‘only’ four percent this year — hardly a meltdown. So keep your chin up! What goes up must come down and interest rates are no exception. And when they do, don’t take on more ‘cheap’ debt. It won’t stay that way — what goes down will go up again.

May you have fun enjoy this great time in Simon’s Town.

Johan and Elmarie Horak

Tags: cell phone, Civic Association, coffee news, Forum, Inflation, Navy, nicki holderness, Restaurant, Roads, simonstown, wine

Posted in Issues | Comments

Main Road Upgrade

On Tuesday I attended a meeting, arranged by Simon’s Town Civic Association, with Paul Booth, the Cape Town City man in charge of the Main Road Upgrade. What a pleasant man. He lives in the area; he cycles and knows what we all want.

What do we want?

• We want a safe Main Road - for vehicles and runners.
• We want a durable Main Road - for many many years to come.
• We wanted a cycle lane - to keep us moving and them safe.
• We want a predictable road - no width changes around every corner.
• We don’t want nasty cambers.
• We want the least amount of hassles during the upgrade.
• We want business to continue.
• We want tourists to keep visiting our area.
• We want adequate parking.
• We want the Argus Cycle Tour to continue on the same route - many people do.
• We want Metro Rail to come to the party.
• We want no traffic problems during the December break.
• We want lots more….

Main Road Upgrade: Can Paul and the City deliver?

Main Road Upgrade Background

From what I gathered from Paul we will get most of the “wants”. But he cannot give us a flowing Main Road and a side walk and parking and a cycle lane. Paul only has between 12 and 13 meters of width to work with and unfortunately the cycle lane was sacrificed.

The project consists of three phases with the first phase commencing soon, starting north of the Police Museum. All the work in Phase One will be before the southern entry to Boyes Drive at Kalk Bay meaning that Simon’s Towners will not be affected if they use Boyes Drive. Ok. Boyes will carry more traffic.

Most of Phase Two will still allow access to Boyes drive at Kalk Bay. But Phase Three will be another story. A story that commence after 2010. [click to enlarge. It's not a great image]

At anyone time there will only be one “stop-and-go” and the distance will not be more than 400 meters on one side of the road. This is great news because a longer distance will delay traveling time even more. The first stop-and-go will only be erected after this year’s Argus Cycle tour.

The traffic lights at these stop and go areas will be manned by trained people to ensure optimum flow of traffic.

They are also considering addition traffic lights. For example should you go north on your way to the airport via Boyes drive into Old Boyes, the right turn into Main road will be impossible with no traffic light. Let’s assume you take Boyes and continue to Main Road on your way to Blue Route. You need to turn left into Main but the road gets clocked with people waiting to turn right into Main Road. We need more traffic lights and left turn lanes at main intersections!

You can get to your destination quicker if we can limit “misplaced politeness”.

I did not know that being a polite driver is causing the traffic to flow slower. It’s actually a misplace politeness. Because trying to be polite has a sting. Well this is what happens: Listen

Drivers, because they are moving slowly along Main Road northbound, are encouraging left turners to enter from Boyes Drive on a one for one basis. This results in nil tailback on Boyes Drive and an ever increasing tailback on Main Road. This then results in rat running with vehicles at the back turning into the side roads and appearing again at Span Road, Putter Road and Boyes Drive. Again the overly polite Main Road Drivers let them in on a one for one basis making the queue on Main Road even longer. Paul Booth.

Paul mentioned that traffic will be disrupted but everything possible is being done to limit it. Unfortunately Metro Rail is currently not present.

Yes, they manage the most beautiful train route in the world but that’s where it ends. One of the proposals is to have a “hop-on-hop-off” ticket for tourists and cyclists (even taking their cycles on the train) but Metro Rail is not part of the solution at their own choosing.

If you have any questions or comments on the Main Road Upgrade please use the forum.

I need to thank the Civic Association for the arranging the meeting and Paul for making time to share the Main Road Upgrade with us.

Regards

Johan Horak

Tags: Civic Association, Main Road, Roads

Posted in Issues | Comments