Eight years ago a foreign property developer came to Port Elizabeth.

As he drove around the city, he admired the beautiful views, saw how close we were to nature and recognised the growth potential the city held.

Property values at the time were rock bottom and there were certain properties "you couldn't give away".

Partially due to lack of interest in our city over the years, many of our old historic buildings were ignored and thereby survived.

The rest of the world reacted to South Africa's apartheid policies, and very few individuals invested in our property market.

At that stage nobody in Port Elizabeth was prepared to take a chance with some of the dilapidated properties.

Developer Ken Denton must be given credit for his foresight. He recognised the potential, and with his powerful overseas currency converting into millions of rands, began buying property all over the city.

The citizens of Port Elizabeth, particularly those living in Central, were delighted. Their saviour had arrived along with promises to fix deteriorating properties.

Unfortunately, many properties were purchased, not for the buildings, but for the land on which they stand. It's the land that increases in capital value, not derelict buildings.

Why are so many buildings being allowed to deteriorate? Are developers deliberately waiting till the buildings are in such a sad state they will be able to turn around later and say "The building is in such decay, the only thing that can be done is to demolish it"?

A visit to Victoria Street, Central, will show how neglect can change an entire neighbourhood. Houses that were in a beautifully restored condition a few years ago are today in a disgusting and derelict condition.

Along with the purchase of an old building comes the responsibility to maintain it. Few people would object if the building's use was changed to a reasonable alternative.

But no, property developers have taken it upon themselves to decide which of our buildings to preserve.

Over the past few years property prices in Port Elizabeth have skyrocketed.

Had Port Elizabeth boomed during the 1970s, there is no doubt pre-awareness developers would have snapped up old buildings on properties with views and destroyed them.

Far too few of our historic buildings in the past received the protection needed from the National Monuments Council.

Look at an old 1930s photographs of Main Street (now Govan Mbeki Avenue) and see what we lost.

National and financial newspapers are now predicting Port Elizabeth will host the next property-on-the-coast boom.

There's a huge demand for coastal properties ? look at Humewood and Summerstrand, for example.

Why are developers flooding into Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, St Francis Bay and Jeffreys Bay, but not Port Elizabeth? What do they have that we don't?

We have more history, we have the best beaches, we have more retail shops, we have more cinemas, we have a wonderful (although unsightly) highway system, we're malaria free, we have a wonderfully moderate climate and we have room to expand.

We even have enough water (barring drought years) to supply our residents' needs year round.

Why is the property market 10 years behind places like Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and even Bloemfontein?

The problem is we have a few property developers who hold a very significant proportion of the city's portfolio and they're not selling.

This unwillingness to sell is retarding the city's development by placing serious limitations on the city's ability to respond to the demand for property.

This places huge constraints on future revitalisation plans, particularly in historic Central.

Recently we witnessed the signing of the Alcan deal at Coega and no doubt others will follow. There is going to be an even higher demand for residential, retail and commercial properties, and we can expect further demands on an already stretched property market.

We've lost residential properties in Cape Road and Heugh Road, and it appears Villiers Road is going the same way.

So why should foreign property developers be concerned about little old Central? After all, they have their own heritage back home which is hundreds of years older than ours and probably much more attractive.

So why should we kick up such a fuss when an old building is lost?

The answer's quite simple: it's all we have and it's ours.

Eastern Province Herald