VICTORIAN VICTORY
Reprieve for Zille’s colonial house
● Helen Zille does not think colonialism was all bad.
But the Western Cape premier had to be restrained from demolishing her Victorian home in Cape Town to make way for a block of flats.
Provincial heritage officials blocked Zille’s application to demolish her home two years ago, a condition of sale in a deal with a developer that subsequently fell through.
As a result, Zille sold the house last month to another developer who insists he will look after it and renovate it, much to the relief of the DA politician’s former neighbours.
Zille lived in the Rosebank villa before becoming premier in 2009 and moving into Leeuwenhof, the official residence in Oranjezicht which she is due to vacate after the election in 10 days’ time.
This week she confirmed having applied for permission to demolish the house but said she had opted not to challenge Heritage Western Cape’s ruling.
Zille said in a written response to questions that the property was in fact zoned for flat rights.
“That is how we bought it — and flat rights add considerably to a property’s value. We have however NOT pursued our application for a demolition after Heritage turned it down — even though I was legally advised that we would have won on appeal because of the rights inherent in the property.
“That decision shaved a very significant amount off the price for which we were able to sell the property,” Zille said.
“When the demolition application was turned down we had every intention of renovating ourselves and moving back. We hired an architect who drew up lovely plans, but when a quantity surveyor costed the plans, it worked out too expensive for us to pursue. At this stage we got a second offer, and decided to sell — with the buyer well aware of the legal limitations of what could be done with the property.”
Deeds records show the 1,006m² property, in a prime location near the University of Cape Town, was sold for R5.5m. Property experts say it would have fetched more had her demolition application succeeded.
Though Zille insisted there was “no story” in the sale of the house, her efforts to demolish it annoyed neighbours who for years have resisted densification of their suburb.
Zille’s initial agreement was with developer Julian Reynolds, whose attempt to demolish part of a historic Bo-Kaap building prompted community outrage and criticism of the DA’s alleged cosiness with developers.
Reynolds confirmed he had approached Zille with an offer to purchase “subject to total demolition approval”.
“We believe and have been advised that the decision to refuse demolition was very harsh and would have been reversed if Mrs Zille was prepared to take the matter to the next stage,” he said.
“Mrs Zille decided not to do that, and as a consequence I believe that she lost money. Any rational property owner that was not in her political position would have taken the matter further.”
Suzanne Vos, one of Zille’s former neighbours and political adversaries in the IFP, said neighbours had resisted the demolition plan.
“We just said no,” Vos said, adding Zille was within her rights to try. It is a very pretty area, or at least what is left of it,” Vos said.
Another neighbour said the property had not been properly maintained in Zille’s absence. Zille responded: “Over the 10 years we have been away, we first had a significant number of young people (students) living there, and after that a tenant in special circumstances. Yes, it was not properly maintained but that was not of our doing.” Interior features include the original Victorian tiled passageway, a pressed-metal ceiling and most of the original internal doors.
In its ruling, Heritage Western Cape’s appeals committee backed a report that described the Meadow Road property as “a good example of a late 19th-century Victorian Mowbray/Rosebank typology … [with] significant spatial and architectural components”.
Zille caused a furore in 2017 when she tweeted about colonialism following a visit to Singapore. She listed some possible benefits, such as “an independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water etcetera”. Architecture was not on her list. One Cape Town property stakeholder said the most surprising aspect of Zille’s house story was that a senior politician had stuck to the rules.
“If it had been almost anybody else that house would be rubble by now.”