AN OVERVIEW
General living conditions and security in Big Bay continued to improve over the past year due to the active and dedicated partnership involving your Trustees, our vendor partners, our City Councillor and the City officials, who are all committed to making Big Bay the jewel of the West Coast!
The MPOA has 7 portfolio committees: Security (Greig Rietoff), Landscape (Liza Keytel), Maintenance & Infrastructure (Japie Botha), Communication (Tony Cunnington), Beach Front (Arno Hood), Finance (Philip Erasmus) and Technology & Fibre (Rory Sales). Each meets regularly, often with City Officials in attendance, and has a strategy and a budget to work within.
The MPOA’s solid foundation is its deeply committed manager – Kerr Robinson, who is passionate about Big Bay and is a fellow resident and member of the BBMPOA.
We are pleased to report that the MPOA is well established, well-funded and with solid working relationships with its strategic partners. The ongoing survival and success of the Association is dependent on its members stepping up to the plate to give of their skills, knowledge and experience, of which there is a particular abundance in our area! The Trustees are normal owners with day-jobs just like you, and we urge you to step forward and participate in our many projects and activities – come and join us and be a part of the Big Bay Team!
FIBRE & TECHNOLOGY
Our Technology & Fibre Portfolio team has worked exceptionally hard in developing a fibre optic network strategy and plan for Big Bay. This has the potential to integrate all the individual estate security camera networks into one umbrella network monitored 24/7 by our security company control room. A secondary benefit is the potential for members to enjoy significant savings (+/-40%) on fibre packages through selected internet service providers as well as DSTV and or OpenView services over fibre.
SAFETY & SECURITY
As in previous years, a primary focus of your Trustees has been to ensure the success of the Security Master Plan by building an integrated security solution involving the Trustees, Big Bay estates, contracted security companies, Table View Neighbourhood Watch, Law Enforcement and SAPS. The efforts of this team have resulted in very little crime being reported in Big Bay during the past year, making it one of the safest, if not the safest, precinct in the whole area. The physical security network infrastructure continued to expand during the past year and is planned to grow significantly in the coming year as the BBMPOA fibre backbone is rolled out to the entrance of all the Big Bay Estates and properties. The security of Big Bay will be further strengthened during the coming year with the implementation of 24/7 foot and vehicle patrols of the entire Big Bay precinct, including vehicle patrols within all the Big Bay Estates.
COMMUNICATION
Effective Communication with our members is a key focus area and the Communication Portfolio Trustee and his team have worked particularly hard during the year to achieve this priority.
MAINTENANCE
This Portfolio covers general maintenance upkeep of our Big Bay area over and above what the City is required to do in its normal service delivery activities (water, sewerage and electricity reticulation, roads maintenance and refuse removal, and more). The Maintenance Portfolio strives to ensure that the City delivers its normal services to Big Bay effectively and, in addition, drives improvements into our area such as additional sewage storage capacity to prevent sewerage spills onto our beaches, replace existing lighting with energy efficient lights, maximise parking areas, repair beach facilities, fencing and walkways and carry out various small maintenance projects around the Big Bay area.
FINANCE & ADMIN
It is very pleasing to note that the effort put in over the past few years has resulted in a growing appreciation of the work being done by the Association and this is reflected in an increase in current and outstanding levy payments.
LANDSCAPING
The overgrown and dead bush in the Big Bay landscape has all been removed and the natural west coast dune strandveld is growing back as originally envisaged in the Big Bay development framework. This has been supplemented by an Environmental Department approved two-year planting programme; Phase 1 having been completed in June 2019, early in the winter rainfall season. This Phase covered the planting of around 3,800 approved strandveld shrubs and trees along the Otto du Plessis corridor. Phase 2 was completed during the first week of the 2020 winter rainfall season and covered the Cormorant Drive and Big Bay Boulevard corridors as well as supplementary planting along the Otto du Plessis corridor where necessary. Good winter rains so far have helped the new plants settle down and get well established and we do not expect a high attrition rate during a normal summer cycle.
BEACHFRONT
Much effort has been put into resuscitating the beachfront lawn (which is considered an iconic Big Bay attraction) that was badly affected during the drought. Large patches of Kikuyu grass died off and were replaced with 700 square metres of hardy Cynodon roll-on lawn more suited to salty coastal conditions. A measured maintenance programme, overseen by a lawn expert, will ensure that the beachfront lawn receives the right treatment and nutrition at the right time. The beachfront lawn maintenance is being managed by the Landscaping Portfolio and the Beachfront maintenance activities have recently been combined into the Maintenance Portfolio which will be responsible for improving the infrastructure around the Eden on the Bay precinct doing such jobs as extending wooden walkways down to the beach, fixing dune fencing, installing additional benches etc.