Warning: Body corporate without water and lights

Make sure your body corporate keeps its lights on

Trustees and managing agents must ensure that they collect enough money from members to keep the water and lights (and other services) connected.

The Supreme Court of Appeal recently dismissed an appeal brought by a body corporate in Durban against a judgment of the KwaZulu-Natal High Court, which held that a municipality may terminate a ratepayer’s water and electricity services based on an outstanding debt for municipal rates.

The court found in this case that the municipal rates bill was in arrears simply because of the body corporate’s admitted failure to impose levies on its members and collect from them a sufficient amount to enable it to pay the municipal charges (A copy of the judgement can be seen here.) A body corporate has a legal obligation under the Sectional Titles Act to impose levies on its members and to collect them to enable it to pay its expenses.

The SCA held that the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act empowers a municipality to terminate a ratepayer’s water and electricity services to enforce payment of arrear rates.

This judgement has important consequences for bodies corporate. Trustees and managing agents must ensure that levies are raised, imposed and collected from members. Levies are the lifeblood of any sectional title scheme.

Contact Terblanche Properties today for expert assistance and professional management services to ensure that your body corporate keeps its lights and water connected.

Desalination plant almost complete

The seawater desalination plant, which is being built at a cost of R210 million at Voorbaai in Mossel Bay, is now 95 per cent complete overall and expected to be completed by the middle of February 2011.

The seawater-intake pipeline has just been laid and the brine-outlet pipeline was scheduled to be laid this past weekend.

On completion of the construction phase the plant will enter into a commissioning phase, which will take approximately three weeks to complete. The plant should therefore be able to go into full production by the first week of March 2011.

The rehabilitation of the affected beach area and dunes will commence as soon as possible after the completion of the pipelines. The cofferdam that was built to facilitate the laying of the intake and outlet pipelines will be demolished and the beach and dune will be restored to their original state.

The rehabilitation of the dune will include the replanting of vegetation, which was removed and kept elsewhere until the construction work could be completed.

Construction of the plant, which will have a capacity of 15 megalitres of desalinated seawater per day, commenced in June 2010.

The onshore plant is located on PetroSA’s logistics site at Voorbaai. The company, which will be entitled to 5 megalitres of the plant’s daily yield, contributed R80 million to the cost of the project. The National Treasury contributed R92 million and the balance is being financed by the Municipality.

Although the plant was undertaken as an emergency project when Mossel Bay was in the grip of the worst drought in 133 years since records were kept, it adds to Mossel Bay’s water security. Mossel Bay has until now relied mainly on surface water.

It will also ensure that the town has sufficient water to cope with future developments in the municipal district.

Original article

 

And then there was rain…

Much-needed rain fell in Mossel Bay recently

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. In Mossel Bay, thankfully, it now falls in the dam. After a severe drought, much needed rain fell in the catchment area of Mossel Bay’s main potable water supply, the Wolwedans Dam.

Following good rains in December 2010, the level of the Wolwedans Dam, rose to more than 60 per cent by 31 December 2010, and at 5 January 2011 stood at 66,13% (source: Department of Water Affairs).

The other smaller dams from which the Municipality gets water, namely the Hartebeeskuil Dam, the Klipheuwel Dam and the Ernst Robertson Dam, have also reached satisfactory levels and it has therefore been possible for Council to partially lift the water restrictions, some of which are set out below:

• Watering of gardens using hand-held garden hoses may be undertaken between 18:00-19:00, two days per week.
• No hosing of roofs, driveways, walls or other surfaces is permitted.
• No washing of vehicles with a garden hose is permitted. This restriction is not applicable to any bona fide and full-time commercial enterprises whose business it is to wash vehicles.
• The filling of swimming pools is prohibited.
• The limit of 15 kilolitres per month per household connection no longer applies. Household customers whose consumption exceeded the limit during December 2010 will be exempted from the surcharge payable on accounts for exceeding the limit that has been applicable until now. The surcharge is not payable when the level of the Wolwedans Dam is above 60 per cent.

The overall situation will be reviewed again soon at the hand of longer term weather forecasts and an assessment of the impact of the holiday season on the town’s water sources with a view to an application to the Department of Water Affairs to ease the water restrictions further.

Mossel Bay’s Water Solution In Place And Working

Media Release. Mossel Bay Tourism. 15 September 2010

“The Municipality of Mossel Bay has taken bold, proactive steps to secure our water supply during the current drought, and locals are doing everything we can to conserve water – so we can confirm that rumours about accommodation or camp sites being forced to close during the holiday season are definitely untrue,” said Mossel Bay Tourism’s chairman, Neels Zietsman.

According to the Municipality, the town used 60% less water during August 2010 than it did during the same month last year.

“This was achieved as a direct result of a strong awareness campaign for water conservation,” said Mr. Zietsman.

“The effective water restrictions that have been put in place have not – and will not – adversely affect the tourism industry: everyone can shower as usual, and the laundries are operating normally.”

He said that the town has sufficient water from its various dams and other sources to last until after the new municipal desalination plant – the largest in South Africa – comes into full operation early next year. “Mossel Bay is currently using a little more than 12 million litres a day, and the desalination plant will produce 15 million litres a day when it’s working to capacity.

“Although the Municipality will only be able to draw 10 million litres a day (because PetroSA will draw the other 5 million), the town’s new boreholes are expected to yield another 5 million litres a day – so the Municipality will definitely have enough water to meet the current demand.”

In addition, he said, the district municipality, local farmers, and PetroSA, which owns and operates the town’s oil-from-gas refinery, have taken steps to reduce water consumption.

PetroSA – which needs as much as 15 million litres of water a day – has committed R22,5 million to the capital cost of a new reverse osmosis effluent water purification plant at Hartenbos, which is already supplying it with as much as 5 million litres a day.  PetroSA has also contributed R80 million to the capital cost of the desalination plant; is covering the cost of bringing water from the Hartebeeskuil Dam to the Municipality’s raw water treatment plant; has undertaken to pay for the equipment required for the new Municipal boreholes; and has made R10 million available for further exploration.

Mr. Zietsman said that the December-January holiday season and the September-November and February-April overseas tourism seasons are vitally important to the town’s economy, and that he was satisfied with the Municipality’s assurances that all visitors would, as always, be more than welcome.

“Mossel Bay’s water supply can cope with the expected influx – and everyone’s efforts will ensure that our water situation will have no effect on anyone’s holidays, or on any tours or packages to our region of the Garden Route,” said Mr. Zietsman.