Family Living

The Village Ridge project will continue, but we cannot confirm the layout or number of units yet.

Please find the facts as per below points.

• Initially we anticipated the environmental process to proceed and be concluded by end July 2022 so that we could commence work (civils) by Aug 2022, based on our original layout plan of the project.

• Since the environmental process re-started (following a Compliance Notice and Directive from both DEA&DP and BGCMA) our environmental specialists found addition studies necessary.  The additional specialist studies required (amongst others) were Amphibian (frogs – an internationally protected “Knysna Leaf Folding” frog was found in the wetland), and scarce Botanical plants were found on site.  Additional environmental buffers were introduced, and a revised layout plan has been proposed because of these additional constraints.

• The advertising and Public Participation process of our WULA and Section 24G applications ended 10 June 2022.  DEA&DP and BGCMA then have 90 days to approve the revised layout design/proposal.  This brings us to beginning Sep 2022.  Once the revised layout plan is approved by DEA&DP/BGCMA, we can then submit to George Municipality to approve the revised layout.  This approval includes the approval of infrastructure designs (civils, electrical, stormwater management plan, traffic impact, etc.).  Depending on the response from George Municipality (30 to 60 days to approve) we envisage starting on the civils again beginning Nov 2022 with a construction period of +-5 months before house construction can commence.  House construction is therefore estimated to commence +- March 2023.

The timing of the above is largely dependent on the timing of the responses we get from the various Governmental departments and their inputs into our proposal.   Note that their response periods are legislated periods in which to respond and cannot be fast-tracked.