q Last 5 yrs little or no marketing due to politically orientated Municipality. Main objective is to now make Mossel Bay a major upmarket Tourist destination.

To achieve this the Municipality has established a Tourism Bureau as a Section 21 Company, the Main Street in the CBD will be refurbished, and many of the existing Caravan Park facilities will be sold off to developers (eg. privatised following a full public participation process in 2003).

A definite need has been identified to make Mossel Bay more Tourism friendly and the provision of more recreational facilities forms a major part of this plan.

Through the sale of the caravan parks and their redevelop, areas such as the Point, Santos, Bakke, and Diaz Beach, either are already or will in the near future go through some major changes.

Major Property Developers are already busy with a number of projects which will put Mossel Bay right at the forefront of Garden Route Tourism, as well as offering the potential investor some exciting opportunities.

§ The Garden Route Casino (1st Casino on the GR) will open in mid-December, 2002, at Pinnacle Point.

§ The actual Pinnacle Point development will be the site of a new golf and lifestyle development, offering an 18 hole course incorporating 2 separate residential components, namely some 120 golf lodges and 500 freehold erven.

§ Moquini Coastal Estate will start to be developed. Offering….

§ Mossel Bay Golf and Country Club is selling at a rapid rate with investors seeing returns on the resale of stands bought 3 yrs ago of up to 250%.

§ Diaz Beach has developed further with the construction of a new luxury apartment block, with the Penthouse Suites selling for upwards of R1.2m.

§ Hartenbos Hills, Island View and Boweresperanza represent 3 other developments which are also drawing a lot of attention.

q Mossel Bay offers an excellent Private Hospital (Bayview), and a Baby hospital, as well as a range of retirement homes.

2.
q Shortage of property available on the market. Property values thus increasing, especially with the added value to the area of all the new developments.

q Mossel Bay offers major opportunities. 40% of the buying power from M/Bay shops in George due to lack of Shops/ Product range etc…

Will change as new developments/ tourism activities attract more and more people to this beautiful Garden Route town.

Municipal Documents - most important POINTS :

Integrated Development Plan :

q Mossel Bay Municipality - a new municipal structure established in Dec.2002 incorporating the former Mossel Bay, Great Brak, Friemersheim, and Herbertsdale Transitional Local Councils; as well as rural areas formerly forming part of the Mossel Bay and Outeniqua Transitional Rural Council Areas.

q Mossel Bay is a popular holiday destination and experiences large seasonable population fluctuations during peak visitor periods. M/Bay has to accommodate up to 400 000 visitors during tourist season. The peak population is thus more than 5 times the normal population. It follows that the M/Bay infrastructure capacity needs to cope with peak demand flows in excess of its normal service requirements for 4 mths of the year.

q Current population at approx. 74 000 Current no. of households at approx. 22 000 Need for an additional 7 600 middle to higher income households to be added between 2000 and 2005

q M/Bay emerges as a strong manufacturing, mining (gas extraction), electricity and construction sector performer against the national and Western Cape average. Manufacturing capability underpins Tourism and Leisure as potential economic performers in the area.

q M/Bay experiences a growing economic dependency on the tourism sector. The challenge for M/Bay will be to ensure the responsible development of the tourism sector to the best advantage of the community.

q M/Bay to develop the range of SMME initiatives and investigate enterprise opportunities : Quick frozen chicken/ concrete products/ instant lawn/ 3.

indigenous plant nursery/ value addition to ostrich products/ sewing activities/ alien vegetation removal.

q M/Bay waterfront project on hold, however there are suggestions that this Portnet owned property, may see further development activity in the next year or so.

WHITE PAPER - PROVINCIAL GOVT. WESTERN CAPE