MARINA
MARTINIQUE
ESTATE REVIEWS
Managing
for its community
. . .
Which processes, procedures, and best practices keep a
successful older estate at the top of its game?
build a community in an estate that caters for
everybody?’
These factors – and the usual considerations
like the maintenance and provision of security COMMUNITY
M and bulk services, and the requirements for Johan said that the large number of group
arina Martinique – a unique Cape- sound financial management – present the housing units presents the biggest problem
Caribbean-style estate consisting homeowners association with an unusual set when it comes to short-term lets, which are
of 384 residential stands and of challenges that demand unusual solutions. managed by individual owners, and marketed
475 units in group housing Marina Martinique’s HOA is a Section 21 through platforms like Airbnb and booking.com.
developments – is built around company that owns the entire infrastructure of a lake and seven kilometres of the estate, including the roads and the canals. ‘Holding the owners accountable seems to be
constructed canals that lie three metres above ‘We really have two major issues at the moment,’ the best solution, but the diversity of people
sea level, and whose water is pumped in from, said Johan Strydom, a semi-retired international who live here, and who visit the estate, brings
and flows back into, the ocean. management consultant who works from his with it its own set of problems: in particular, how
home in the Marina, and who is currently the do you communicate with everybody in a way
vice-chair of the HOA. that makes sense to each of them?’
(construction on the first phase having started ‘The first concerns the behaviour of short-term Short-term solutions include the use of formal
in 1990, and on the second in late 2003), the tenants who ignore the rules, for example, messaging services like SMS and email, as well
estate is both a home for permanent residents when it’s permissible to make a noise, how as more informal platforms like two different
and a playground for holidaymakers from fast you can drive a boat on the canals or the WhatsApp groups – one for general, social
elsewhere. lake, and so on. And the second is how do we communication (special offers at the Marina
Given its beachside position bordering the
resort town of Jeffreys Bay, and its age
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