Dear Welgevonden Estate Homeowners and Residents
Who would have thought that we’d be experiencing winter weather at a time of the year when spring is supposed to be around the corner!
Although the exact arrival time of the new season might be uncertain right now, we have news of an important event that certainly reflects the new beginnings that come with spring – National Arbor Week from 29 August to 4 September. Estate management have scheduled a tree planting programme for this week which residents will be able to take part in.
National Arbor Week
National Arbor Week is a time when South Africans of all ages are encouraged to celebrate the beauty and importance of trees. It is also an opportune time to become involved in planting indigenous trees as a practical and symbolic gesture of sustainable environmental management.
Excom will be planting a significant number of indigenous trees on Welgevonden Estate during this week. This forms part of the long-term landscape plan to further beautify the estate. This project has lately become more achievable as irrigation water will now become available with an irrigation system currently being installed.
Welgevonden Estate residents are invited to become part of National Arbor Week in the following ways:
By buying trees that can be ordered at a special price via the estate’s administrative office, and to plant the trees themselves on their own properties on the estate; and/or
By sponsoring one or more trees – which will be labelled with the sponsor’s name – to be planted by estate management on the estate’s common property.
More information:
To see the range of indigenous trees to choose from, as well as the special pricing of the trees, click here.
For information on how to plant a tree with the best results, click here.
Please send an e-mail to admin@welgevonden.co.za if you require more information, or if you want to buy or sponsor one or more trees.
Public parking space on Welgevonden Estate
As Welgevonden Estate has a limited number of parking bays available to visitors, parking control measures are in place to govern the parking of vehicles on the estate. Estate management, furthermore, takes action to ensure adherence to this policy. This includes, amongst others, terrain inspections to point out transgressions to those whose vehicles are not parked according to the parking control measures, and issuing of fines to those who continue to ignore the regulations.
Point 4 of the Parking Control Measures makes provision for exceptional parking circumstances. These include an option to apply for a resident parking permit at a prescribed monthly fee if the nature of an erf makes it difficult for a resident to park on the erf itself. Such a permit allows the permit holder to park on a visitor parking bay, but does not include the reservation or exclusive use of a specific demarcated parking bay on any common parking area.
Please contact estate management if you are unsure about the stipulations of the Parking Control Measures, if you need assistance with a specific parking problem, or if you perhaps have a special temporary requirement as far as parking and your property goes. Please also report illegal parking you may be aware of in order to help streamline the parking situation on Welgevonden Estate.
Click here to read the latest version of the Parking Control Measures – version July 2022-01. This policy is also available on the Welgevonden Estate website www.welgevonden.co.za/residents.
Social media
Although a number of Facebook accounts exist for Welgevonden Estate, Welgevonden Estate Stellenbosch is the only official WHOA Facebook account, administrated and managed by estate management and Excom.
For further clarification, estate management and/or the WHOA Excom do not administrate or monitor any other Facebook account. This means that they are not aware of or, for that matter, do not respond to posts or comments made on these pages. Therefore, please contact estate management at admin@welgevonden.co.za or on 021 889 5450 if you want to bring estate matters to their attention, instead of doing so on social media.
We appeal to homeowners and residents to post and comment responsibly and with accountability about Welgevonden Estate matters, should you do so on social media. Especially, refrain from discussing matters that relate to estate security – whether true or merely speculation – as such comments are made on public platforms and could jeopardize the estate’s security protocols. Do report such matters directly to estate management or the security supervisor on duty.
Please click here for further information regarding responsible use of social media.
Voliere Development
We again wish to confirm that strict security arrangements are in place for Voliere Estate contractors who, at times, may have to work on Welgevonden Estate while installing municipal services infrastructure for the new development. Contractor personnel are registered for the duration of the work on the estate’s biometric access control system and enter/exit the estate via the biometric scanning system. Furthermore, Welgevonden Estate’s security manager, together with Xone Security’s site manager, are personally involved with and oversee security arrangements while work is being done on Welgevonden Estate.
Stellenbosch Municipality
We’ve had a positive response and feedback from the Stellenbosch Municipality’s Infrastructure Services Department following our communication with them regarding various storm water and sewerage problems we experience from time to time in certain areas of Welgevonden Estate. Part of their response was an audit they’ve recently completed on these services in this area, and maintenance and upgrades that will now follow. On this note we would like to, once more, advise homeowners to ensure that they do not have any storm water drainage connected into the municipal sewerage system. The municipality will do inspections in this regard while upgrading the services.
Accredited estate agents
We would like to remind homeowners of the estate agencies and agents who are accredited by the WHOA. Using their services offers peace of mind, knowing that the selling or rental of properties will be in line with the requirements laid down by Welgevonden Estate. This is in support of one of the goals of the WHOA, namely to optimize the value proposition offered to homeowners to ensure the value of properties on Welgevonden Estate are protected and enhanced, while maintaining integrity, goodwill and good faith at the same time. Please click here to read more.
Early termination of rental contracts
We request homeowners who rent out their properties to inform the estate’s administrative office in instances where rental contacts are terminated earlier than what was originally stipulated in the contract, and recorded on the estate’s biometric access control system. This will enable us to remove the outgoing tenants from the system at the time when they vacate their rented properties.
Refuse bins
As a reminder and according to Rule 15 of the WHOA Estate Rules, only put municipal refuse bins out for refuse removal day on Thursday evening or early on Friday morning, and return the empty bins by latest the same Friday evening. Please ask a neighbour to return your empty bin should you be planning to go away for a weekend and perhaps not able to return the empty bin yourself.
Landscaping labour force
As announced in our previous newsletter, Bidvest Top Turf is now providing Welgevonden Estate’s landscaping labour force. Below is the team – together with Ruan du Plessis, Welgevonden Estate’s landscaping manager – in their new uniform. Welcome to each one of the team members!
Best regards
Gawie Marx
Estate Manager
16 August 2022
