By Guy Rogers

The final environmental impact report (EIR) for the Madiba Bay Leisure Park has been made public, with some reduction in the controversial accommodation aspect.

However, it includes a warning that if a golf course is built on the edge of the coast, as proposed, it will cause substantial environmental damage.

The 5639ha project site, stretching from Cape Recife to Sardinia Bay and inland to the airport, will include 16 “precincts”, six of which will include some kind of accommodation, the report said.

One of the chief areas of dispute has been the 8ha education precinct where the developer envisaged, in the draft EIR, accommodation for 2000 students.

In a list of comments by stakeholders on the draft EIR, attached to the final EIR, Wildlife and Environment Society spokesman Morgan Griffiths says the project “is really about profiteering from accommodation options”.

“We disagree that the vision for this coast should be that of a ribbon of holiday flats, homes, conference and other commercial buildings.

“We hold that this project is ribbon development and it is in contravention of the objectives of the Coastal White Paper.”

The ownership status of these units was irrelevant, he says.

“They still form a building with a physical footprint and an associated footprint of water use, sewerage discharge, traffic and visual impacts.”

Pine Lodge owner Dennis Tucker says the accommodation envisaged by the developer will “totally destroy any environmental benefit this very valuable area will ever have”. In the final EIR, the consultant, Grahamstown- based Coastal and Environmental Services, says the edu-precinct will include administration offices, a conference auditorium, parking lot and restaurant.

It will still be on the seaward side of Marine Drive, on the northern boundary of the Cape Recife Nature Reserve, but has been shifted to an environmentally “degraded area”.

To ease further concerns, the report says “student numbers have been reduced from 2000 to 350 (150 students plus 200 for timeshare accommodation); the focus of education is now environmental education and strict noise control will be enforced to control noise levels”.

A number of parties have opposed the positioning of the proposed 18-hole links golf estate on the edge of the sea, and argue that its envisaged 500 accommodation units should be “severely trimmed”.

CES says in the final report that the negative effect of the proposed construction of the course on the coastal foredune was “very high”.

“But the social and economic benefits of the construction of a true links course that would receive world status and therefore attract many golfers and tournaments are positive.”

The final report says while the site falls within an area that includes vulnerable and critically endangered vegetation, the project will help protect it because “about 58 per cent” would be restored to a natural state” while the rest would be developed or landscaped.

A system of corridors is envisaged, with fences which will allow small game to move through and there will be an underpass near Schoenmakerskop to allow game to cross the road.

Source: The Herald