Open letter by Angry and Disgruntled Homeowners at Westlake Country & Safari Estate

04/04/2024News

Westlake residents during an awareness campaign over the Easter weekend.

As residents of our area, we are privileged to have spectacular natural beauty, a dam, mountains, wildlife in abundance, and many local attractions and destinations that make living here for many a dream come true.
However the security situation countrywide has caused a gravitation to gated communities and estates, which have proliferated in our area over the preceding 20 odd years.
This is in itself not necessarily a bad development, but along with the facilities and attractions in these estates has come the rise of what should be residential houses, being rented out for profit. Some have bought weekend getaway homes and are finding that renting them out as a B&B is a lucrative endeavor.
This has often led to the very reasons for people moving here to be destroyed, with parties, drunken and unruly behavior, and the iniquities of urban life finding its way to Hartbeespoort each weekend, coming to noisily rest often, in the house next door to your home.
The power of Home Owners Associations to curb this has been undermined by the B&B owner telling the HOA’s and the gate security that these are “friends” or “business associates”, using the house, and by so doing, lying to the HOA’s and their neighbors, and using the estate’s facilities to line their pockets to the detriment of the estate the neighbors, and the environment.
Some concerned Homeowners at Westlake decided to spend some time over the Easter Weekend to conduct an awareness campaign, to inform visitors that they were breaching the estate rules, and that while they were visiting a “home”, they were not entitled to utilize estate facilities such as the golf course, estate pool, braai facilities or fishing spots.
Each vehicle entering the Estate on Thursday and Friday received a printed note handed out by the volunteers, pointing out that they were assessing the estate in breach of the rules and were not allowed to be there. This effort was met with approval by most HOA members, but with fierce and personal attacks from those advertising their homes for B&B or short term rentals, when called out for doing so on Estate social media groups.
These B&B’s are leeches and parasites, abetting fraudulent entry to the estate while earning the owners an income in defiance of the rules, by degrading the very reason we live in our estates, and a reliable method should be found to dissuade them.
Sites advertising B&B’s and short term rentals should be very proactive in removing these advertisements when requested to do so by the management of an HOA, but many are not, and simply don’t care, thereby perpetuating the struggle by HOA’s to put a stop to this practice.
This determined group at Westlake are taking control of their environment and doing their part to keep from having their Estate from being turned into a weekend party destination.
That said, most, if not all of them do not have business licenses to operate as rental accommodation destination or B&B, and a visit by Madibeng Town Council to these properties would be welcomed by many I am sure.
In conclusion, don’t wait for your board to attempt to do something- it’s your home, your future and your investment, don’t let a bunch of greedy parasites impact on that negatively, get out there and make it unpleasant for B&B renters to party in your neighbourhood!
Thank you to those few who always step up when needed!