One of the oldest farms in the province, Maastricht Farm, on the Durbanville Hills, is set to get a facelift.
This comes after Heritage Western Cape gave the go-ahead for the farm’s owners to renovate the property.
“Your application for this case has been approved. We deliberated, and, as you can tell, it to took us some time, but the good news is that it’s successful,” said Heidi Boise, case officer in the matter, at an appeals meeting held in the city on Wednesday June 20.
The owners want to turn an unused barn, which is more than 60 years old, into a wine-tasting and function venue, which they say will save the building.
The architect for the project, Johan Malherbe, said they had had plans approved in 2013 but had not gone ahead with the development at the time for financial reasons.
“We re-submitted plans with lesser impact, and Heritage Western Cape decided that a heritage impact assessment must now be done. We felt this was not required, as the previous submission approval was for much more work to the building for which plans are now submitted, thus the appeal was won on those grounds.”
Helen Neethling, of the Durbanville Heritage Society, said: “We don’t have a problem with the plans to development on Maastricht farm; we support the project.”
The plans will now be submitted to Heritage Western Cape’s Built Environment and Landscape Committee and then go to the municipality for approval.
The building operations are set to start before the end of the year.