The Environmental Story of Paradise Park
The Environmental Story of Paradise Park
The Environmental Story of Paradise Park
The Nurturing of a Delicate Ecosystem
Our Earth, Our Habitat, Our Home
The Environmental Story of Paradise Park
The Nurturing of a Delicate Ecosystem
From day one, Sable Cape was forewarned of the environmental sensitivities and challenges to restore the property, currently known as Paradise Park, to good ecological health. The developer, Sarel van Niekerk, saw this challenge as an opportunity to rehabilitate the wetlands – not only as his responsibility to do so, but also to maintain the appeal for potential buyers and future homeowners to want to invest here, surrounded by healthy wetlands with all the wildlife it hosts.
Sable Cape has spent millions rehabilitating, where possible, the wetlands of Paradise Park – engaging with aquatic specialist and environmental consultant, Duncan H.W. Heard of Duncan Heard Environmental Consulting. Their main focus is on first rehabilitating the area according to the national wetland criteria – designing a water flow pathway, removing invasive alien vegetation as well as construction that is fringing too close on sensitive areas, and building sewage infrastructure that will curb the current pollution seeping into the groundwater. Only after this rehabilitation process, will they commence with planning their construction to coexist with nature and allow the ecosystem to be revived and for nature to thrive.
The natural fynbos in and surrounding Hermanus is of global significance, but its sustainability and that of its associated wetlands is threatened in many respects. Future development is one such threat that if not undertaken wisely, will irreparably destroy our natural heritage for the benefit of future generations.
The Hermanus suburb of Vermont is where Paradise Park is located. Vermont is a unique and sought-after urban area. One of the main attractions is Vermont’s network of protected green belts. These span the coastline, meandering through the suburb from sea to mountain and include the bird-rich Vermont Salt Pan. Such natural corridors provide a diversity of indigenous wildlife offering a safe environment where they can feed, find shelter and breed. Residents enjoy the ambience of the natural areas and the often close-up encounters with a diversity of birds and other wildlife (including grysbok, honey badgers, caracal, mongoose, genet, and porcupine).
From day one, Sable Cape was forewarned of the environmental sensitivities and challenges to restore the property, currently known as Paradise Park, to good ecological health. The developer, Sarel van Niekerk, saw this challenge as an opportunity to rehabilitate the wetlands – not only as his responsibility to do so, but also to maintain the appeal for potential buyers and future homeowners to want to invest here, surrounded by healthy wetlands with all the wildlife it hosts.
Sable Cape has spent millions rehabilitating, where possible, the wetlands of Paradise Park – engaging with aquatic specialist and environmental consultant, Duncan H.W. Heard of Duncan Heard Environmental Consulting. Their main focus is on first rehabilitating the area according to the national wetland criteria – designing a water flow pathway, removing invasive alien vegetation as well as construction that is fringing too close on sensitive areas, and building sewage infrastructure that will curb the current pollution seeping into the groundwater. Only after this rehabilitation process, will they commence with planning their construction to coexist with nature and allow the ecosystem to be revived and for nature to thrive.
The natural fynbos in and surrounding Hermanus is of global significance, but its sustainability and that of its associated wetlands is threatened in many respects. Future development is one such threat that if not undertaken wisely, will irreparably destroy our natural heritage for the benefit of future generations.
The Hermanus suburb of Vermont is where Paradise Park is located. Vermont is a unique and sought-after urban area. One of the main attractions is Vermont’s network of protected green belts. These span the coastline, meandering through the suburb from sea to mountain and include the bird-rich Vermont Salt Pan. Such natural corridors provide a diversity of indigenous wildlife offering a safe environment where they can feed, find shelter and breed. Residents enjoy the ambience of the natural areas and the often close-up encounters with a diversity of birds and other wildlife (including grysbok, honey badgers, caracal, mongoose, genet, and porcupine).
The 20 ha Paradise Park resort (started in the 1960s), however, followed a tragically different route to that of Vermont, in terms of protection of the environment. This one-time resort straddles a natural wetland system where water once flowed from upstream seeps coming off the dune fields in the west and the Onrusberge to the north. The wetland-filtered water flowed into the Vermont Pan, which is a well-known haven for birdlife and is enjoyed by residents and visitors to the area. The Vermont Pan and its feeder wetland system is nationally classified as a National Freshwater Ecosystem Priority Area. On the fringes of this wetland system, Hangklip Sand Fynbos, a now endangered veld type, also occurred.
Over the years, the previous owner of Paradise Park allowed persons to build their own dwellings and live on the property for a rental fee. This practice is illegal in terms of resort zoning regulations. Furthermore, the dwellings do not meet town building standards and are non-compliant in terms of town planning regulations. Many of these dwellings also have non-compliant sewage systems which to this day still leak into the groundwater and thereby also pollutes the Vermont Pan system.
By 2017, when the property was purchased by Magna Business Services (Magna), there were approximately 290 households living in the Park. Approximately 60% of their dwellings had been built within the extensive wetland area that covers much of the property. A domestic waste dump had also been established in the wetland (closed by the municipality in the early 2000s) and by 2009 a Mashie golf course had also been established in the wetland.
This state of affairs has not only destroyed much of the wetland but led to groundwater pollution. Studies and water quality testing of the Vermont Pan’s water in the early 2000s, as requested by the Vermont Community at that time, clearly showed that the Pan’s water near the park contained very high quantities of E. coli - a bacterium indicating faecal contamination levels that can be dangerous to human health and wildlife. In the past five years there has, on two occasions, been a significant die-off of birdlife that use the pan, due to avian botulism. This bird disease tends to occur at water bodies that have become over-enriched by nutrients from pollutants.
The previous owner of the Park had also disregarded laws to control declared invasive alien vegetation (IAV) on the property and allowed the Park to become massively overgrown with IAV. This IAV infestation was significantly reducing the amount of groundwater flow through the property, thereby severely depleting annual water-flow volume into the Pan. Furthermore, the IAV infestation displaced all the remnant natural fynbos vegetation and posed a massive fire risk to life and property inside and outside the Park.
The 20 ha Paradise Park resort (started in the 1960s), however, followed a tragically different route to that of Vermont, in terms of protection of the environment. This one-time resort straddles a natural wetland system where water once flowed from upstream seeps coming off the dune fields in the west and the Onrusberge to the north. The wetland-filtered water flowed into the Vermont Pan, which is a well-known haven for birdlife and is enjoyed by residents and visitors to the area. The Vermont Pan and its feeder wetland system is nationally classified as a National Freshwater Ecosystem Priority Area. On the fringes of this wetland system, Hangklip Sand Fynbos, a now endangered veld type, also occurred.
Over the years, the previous owner of Paradise Park allowed persons to build their own dwellings and live on the property for a rental fee. This practice is illegal in terms of resort zoning regulations. Furthermore, the dwellings do not meet town building standards and are non-compliant in terms of town planning regulations. Many of these dwellings also have non-compliant sewage systems which to this day still leak into the groundwater and thereby also pollutes the Vermont Pan system.
By 2017, when the property was purchased by Magna Business Services (Magna), there were approximately 290 households living in the Park. Approximately 60% of their dwellings had been built within the extensive wetland area that covers much of the property. A domestic waste dump had also been established in the wetland (closed by the municipality in the early 2000s) and by 2009 a Mashie golf course had also been established in the wetland.
This state of affairs has not only destroyed much of the wetland but led to groundwater pollution. Studies and water quality testing of the Vermont Pan’s water in the early 2000s, as requested by the Vermont Community at that time, clearly showed that the Pan’s water near the park contained very high quantities of E. coli - a bacterium indicating faecal contamination levels that can be dangerous to human health and wildlife. In the past five years there has, on two occasions, been a significant die-off of birdlife that use the pan, due to avian botulism. This bird disease tends to occur at water bodies that have become over-enriched by nutrients from pollutants.
The previous owner of the Park had also disregarded laws to control declared invasive alien vegetation (IAV) on the property and allowed the Park to become massively overgrown with IAV. This IAV infestation was significantly reducing the amount of groundwater flow through the property, thereby severely depleting annual water-flow volume into the Pan. Furthermore, the IAV infestation displaced all the remnant natural fynbos vegetation and posed a massive fire risk to life and property inside and outside the Park.
An environmental consultant was engaged to manage the required environmental impact assessment process (EIA) for the proposed residential redevelopment of the Park. The consultant advised that it was critical with the planning of the residential redevelopment to firstly rehabilitate the wetland to an ecologically functional state, to allow clean surface and groundwater to flow into the Vermont Pan. Magna ardently agreed with this approach and visualised the rehabilitated wetland as an attractive natural focus area running through the proposed new development. This would furthermore reinstate the continuum of the Vermont Pan wetland system and serve as an extension of the Vermont Greenbelt system.
An aquatic specialist was then appointed to design a flow pathway for the rehabilitated wetland that would be smaller than the original wetland footprint on the property but would perform the same ecological function. This was done according to set national wetland criteria. Once this footprint was determined, the concept residential layout was developed. During this planning process, all the relevant EIA environmental commenting authorities (including their aquatic specialists) were invited to site and continually kept informed of the planning process.
While the EIA process was being run, Magna spent millions on removing IAV from the property. The fire risk has been reduced to the satisfaction of the Overstrand Fire Protection Services. Where the IAV was removed around the shores of the Pan on the Park, there has been a fantastic regeneration of indigenous vegetation, and a diversity of birds and other wildlife (including the dwarf chameleon) are back – living and breeding there.
The future rehabilitation and restoration of the wetland will have to be a fastidious exercise as not only will the existing above ground infrastructure have to be removed, but also the defunct below ground sewage infrastructure without further polluting the groundwater. The environmental consultant and aquatic specialist will closely oversee this.
An Environmental Management Programme has been developed with strict guidelines to conserve and protect the new 7 hectare wetland during the development project’s construction and operational phases. There are very few residential developments that can say they will be able to boast a wetland rehabilitation of this size – a real and significant gain for conservation in Vermont, Hermanus.
Writer: Duncan Heard
Environmental Consultant
An environmental consultant was engaged to manage the required environmental impact assessment process (EIA) for the proposed residential redevelopment of the Park. The consultant advised that it was critical with the planning of the residential redevelopment to firstly rehabilitate the wetland to an ecologically functional state, to allow clean surface and groundwater to flow into the Vermont Pan. Magna ardently agreed with this approach and visualised the rehabilitated wetland as an attractive natural focus area running through the proposed new development. This would furthermore reinstate the continuum of the Vermont Pan wetland system and serve as an extension of the Vermont Greenbelt system.
An aquatic specialist was then appointed to design a flow pathway for the rehabilitated wetland that would be smaller than the original wetland footprint on the property but would perform the same ecological function. This was done according to set national wetland criteria. Once this footprint was determined, the concept residential layout was developed. During this planning process, all the relevant EIA environmental commenting authorities (including their aquatic specialists) were invited to site and continually kept informed of the planning process.
While the EIA process was being run, Magna spent millions on removing IAV from the property. The fire risk has been reduced to the satisfaction of the Overstrand Fire Protection Services. Where the IAV was removed around the shores of the Pan on the Park, there has been a fantastic regeneration of indigenous vegetation, and a diversity of birds and other wildlife (including the dwarf chameleon) are back – living and breeding there.
The future rehabilitation and restoration of the wetland will have to be a fastidious exercise as not only will the existing above ground infrastructure have to be removed, but also the defunct below ground sewage infrastructure without further polluting the groundwater. The environmental consultant and aquatic specialist will closely oversee this.
An Environmental Management Programme has been developed with strict guidelines to conserve and protect the new 7 hectare wetland during the development project’s construction and operational phases. There are very few residential developments that can say they will be able to boast a wetland rehabilitation of this size – a real and significant gain for conservation in Vermont, Hermanus.
Writer: Duncan Heard - Environmental Consultant
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