Just off St George’s Street, the main road that runs through Simon’s Town, lies an idyllic enclave that has thwarted the ambitions of developers for more than a decade. But now, despite a unified front between homeowners and the displaced Malay community – not to mention the archaeological value of the site as a former supply farm for the Dutch East India Company – a well-known developer has been given the green light to build a ‘boutique’ estate on the property. “The integrity of Simon’s Town, which we are in the process of losing, was one of the reasons that we originally bought here,” says a member of the residents’ committee.
“Just look at Paternoster. They have development, but the integrity of the old fishing village is still there.” It is a Friday morning in mid-November 2025, and Daily Maverick is involved in a group discussion that – as far as ourprevious reportingwould seem to suggest – echoes the concerns of thousands of ratepaying Capetonians. For about two hours now, these six members of the ad hoc committee, all homeowners in the immediate vicinity, have been telling a story about their likely losses in the face of a local developer’s profits.
“The next big target for developers is the False Bay coast,” says another committee member. “The Atlantic Seaboard is already done.” As a tour of the neighbourhood will soon reveal, it is obvious why a developer would be drawn to this particular location on False Bay’s western shore. With its egress onto St George’s Street, the famous old Simon’s Town thoroughfare that also goes by the name of M4 (the same M4 that runs through Fish Hoek, Muizenberg and Wynberg all the way to the Cape Town CBD), lies a narrow roadway called Wickboom Lane, which a visitor would almost certainly overlook unless he or she knew what was up there — cobblestone alleys, whitewashed houses, generous Bougainvillea and peerless sea views that, without much of a stretch, could be an island village in the Mediterranean.
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In fact, members of the committee claim that many of the off-plan buyers in the new development –advertised on the websiteas a “secure boutique estate” that offers “effortless coastal living” – are foreigners. To Daily Maverick, at a price list starting at just under R7-million for an entry-level two-bedroom townhouse, andprojected monthly incomefrom short-term rentals of between R50,000 and R85,000, this detail (later confirmed at 70% South African by the developer himself – which means 30% is foreign buyers) makes a whole lot of sense. To be specific, although Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis hasdisputedthe assertion,critics have notedthat the influx of foreign buyers is antithetical to the interests of the City’s middle-income ratepayers.
In this regard, it is telling that not one of the members of the residents’ committee — who claim, with documented verification, to represent 31 of the 35 homeowners in the enclave — is swayed by the likelihood that the new estate will increase the value of their own property. Instead of waiting quietly for their payday, they have chosen to alert Daily Maverick to the history of the site. Known officially as “ERF 4053”, they say, it has thwarted the ambitions of developers since the mayoral reign of Patrica de Lille.
“ERF 4053 lies behind the former Royal Naval Hospital in St George’s Street,” anarticleby veteran journalist John Yeld, published in the Sunday Argus in 2013, confirms. “The entire area was part of the Constantia Homestead of 1749, a farm that provided fresh produce for the VOC [Dutch East India Company] ships.” The news value of the piece, as Yeld had already made clear, was the issuing of a “stop order” by the City of Cape Town and Heritage Western Cape to the owners of the plot at the time. According to the article, these previous owners — who had taken transfer of the property only two months before — had begun to clear parts of the site before a development plan had been approved.
“Using an excavator, the workmen caused serious damage, including the demolition of a historic retaining wall,” Yeld reported. “The workmen also uncovered some potentially important artefacts, including bits of human bones, glassware and pottery shards.” And so now, as the neighbourhood tour arrives at the few retaining walls that are still intact, the questions all but ask themselves. What’s to stop the current developer, Classic Collection (Pty) Ltd, from erasing all evidence of the historic VOC terraces?
What will become of the artefacts, shards and bones? Daily Maverick put this question to Warwick Goosen, the CEO ofTintswalo Property Group, Classic Collection’s parent company. We also put the question to Simon Liell-Cock, the Democratic Allianceward councillorfor much of Cape Town’s deep south, including Simon’s Town, Ocean View, Scarborough and Kommetjie. Both men assured us that they would fully adhere to the requirements of Heritage Western Cape (see the responses below).
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