Leading attorney Billy Gundelfinger is celebrating success in a fight with the City of Cape Town and its contracted developers to stop the sale of a heritage site in Maiden’s Cove.

A Weekend Argus report notes Gundelfinger was an applicant in his personal capacity and also as a committee member of the Clifton Bungalow Owners Association.

He said he felt relieved after Judge President John Hlophe set aside the sale of the site to Vunani Capital and the developers for R1bn and ordered the city to pay the legal costs. The application, he said, had stopped development of a unique amenity which has a deep, visceral meaning and significance for the people of the Bo-Kaap, District Six, Woodstock and the Cape Flats.

‘Maiden’s Cove is one of only two beaches on the Atlantic seaboard which non-whites had access to during apartheid. Had the development proceeded, it would have been disastrous, in that it would have transformed the shape, character and nature of Clifton and Maiden’s Cove,’ he said.

In court papers filed last month, the applicants charged that the city had failed to follow due process in awarding the contract and that public participation had been superficial.

Gundelfinger said Hlophe had put an abrupt end to the city’s attempt to exchange ‘undisturbed, spectacular rugged’ coastline for a sea of concrete. ‘This is a triumph for the rule of law and illustrates profoundly how the courts will protect individuals against the misplaced, avaricious aspirations of corporate power.’

Full Weekend Argus report