Advertisement
Building and Architectural Compliance manager Andries Wolmarans has been in the HOA saddle since January this year and has been catching up fast on developments in motion at Kingswood Golf Estate, some of which kicked off ‘before his time’.
Now fully settled in, he’s embroiled in everything happening on the estate’s building front, from planning stages to completion. ‘Standard maintenance is part of our daily mission. Where trees fell over, we’ve removed them. Where roads have been damaged by the storm, we fix them.’
Underground infrastructure investigated
It became apparent, in the aftermath of this year’s ‘Big Storm’, that water pipes and power lines were not located where they were set to be. ‘Several months down the line, after extensive cleanup operations, we realised that turf was still sloshing under our feet and that pipes and power lines needed to be investigated.’
In the search for a waylaid cable, the team hired a TLB (Tractor Loader Backhoe) to assist with the task. ‘We had to find a chopped-off cable, and that machine can dig! It’s not productive to ponder on whose fault it is or who pays for the work. George Municipality has been very helpful in the process of sorting it out.’
Revise and improve
Revising the estate’s architectural guidelines is part of Andries’s portfolio – ‘a big job, but since it’s an existing document, I adapt rather than start from scratch. When taking it sentence by sentence, I check for ambiguities, whether it’s relevant to our timeframe, and if there are improvements to be made.
‘The timeline is not critical, but I’ve set a mid-October deadline for myself. It will then be assessed by Kingswood’s Architectural Review committee, before being shared with the trustees.
‘Once everyone is happy, George Municipality is updated. We often deal with their building inspectors, and we’ve established a good relationship. We keep them posted when there are any illegalities to report, or when the municipal law department needs to be roped in, rather than fighting four fights alone.’
Advertisement
New projects
In Kingswood Village (behind the Community Centre), eight houses are currently in the building process – all in different phases from design submission to building completion. In Kingswood Cross (Phase 4), one new home design is in the application stages and two more in the planning stages. At Kingswood Court, KDC Architects submitted a site development plan for a 12-house development to the George Municipality
