Langstrand trailer park leases valid: Court

THE Walvis Bay Municipality has suffered a second legal defeat in its attempt to get rid of the trailer park that has been one of the features – but not at all a complementary one, according to some – of the Langstrand holiday settlement for the past close to twenty years.

A year and a half after High Court Judge Louis Muller dismissed an application through which the Walvis Bay Municipal Council tried to end the lease agreements of the owners of mobile homes that have been set up at Langstrand, the Supreme Court has now also ruled against the Municipal Council in an appeal that the Council had lodged against Judge Muller’s decision. Former Chief Justice Johan Strydom, now serving as an Acting Judge of Appeal in the Supreme Court, wrote the court’s judgement.With Chief Justice Peter Shivute and Acting Judge of Appeal Fred Chomba agreeing with his judgement, Judge Strydom dismissed the appeal and ordered the Municipal Council to pay the legal costs of the 30 mobile home owners who had opposed the Council’s bid to persuade the courts to declare their caravan stand leases at Langstrand as invalid and to order the removal of their mobile homes from the area.The court’s decision means that the Walvis Bay Municipal Council will for about another five years have to accept the presence of guests who, in the Council’s view, have outstayed their welcome at Langstrand.The all-white predecessor of the current Municipal Council decided on December 6 1989 to award the first permanent site where a mobile home could be parked in the Langstrand caravan park to someone who had written to the Municipality to ask that a permanent site be allocated to him.Initially, these sites where mobile homes could be set up were leased for one-year terms, which could be renewed.On October 26 1993, only about four months before South Africa’s rule over Walvis Bay was to officially come to an end with the Walvis Bay enclave’s reincorporation into Namibia, the Municipal Council decided that rent of N$150 a month should be charged for each mobile home stand at Langstrand, that this will increase by ten per cent a year, and that a lease period of nine years and eleven months should apply for all these stands.In terms of the lease agreements that the then Mayor and Town Clerk of Walvis Bay signed with mobile home owners leasing stands at Langstrand, the lease could, after the lapse of a first period of nine years and eleven months, be renewed for one further period of nine years and eleven months, Judge Strydom noted in his judgement.This means that the leases should be reaching the end of their lives by 2013.The Municipal Council attacked the leases with claims that some of these agreements had not been approved by the Municipal Council, and that none of the renewal clauses contained in the leases had been approved by the Council.As a result, it was argued, the renewal clauses and the leases that were not specifically approved by the Council were beyond the powers of the Council and had to be declared null and void.According to the Council, the income received from the leases is “paltry,” Judge Strydom summarised their case.The Council claimed that the land on which the caravan park is situated at Langstrand is prime property that could be sold for more than N$3 million, and that the development of the land would not only generate income for the municipality, but also create jobs and other benefits for “a greater number of people”.When the Mayor and Town Clerk signed lease contracts with the Langstrand mobile home owners, they did so on the authority of the Municipal Council, Judge Strydom found.The Council decision of October 26 2003 did not require that the written agreements concluded with mobile home owners again had to be put before the Council for its approval, and did not require that the matter should again come up for review before the Council at the end of the lease period before the lease period could be extended, he further found.As a result of his findings, Judge Strydom rejected the argument that the lease agreements and extension had been beyond the Municipal Council’s powers.The Municipal Council cannot now go back on an agreement that had been legally concluded on its behalf, Judge Strydom indicated.He stated: “(I)f the Council did not give the necessary instructions to enter into these agreements the Council cannot now deny authorisation because if the agreements had been concluded on behalf of the Council, which indeed they were, the Council is bound by it.”Norman Arendse, SC, argued the Council’s case in both the Supreme Court and High Court.Loetter Wepener, SC, represented the mobile home owners who opposed the case.Former Chief Justice Johan Strydom, now serving as an Acting Judge of Appeal in the Supreme Court, wrote the court’s judgement.With Chief Justice Peter Shivute and Acting Judge of Appeal Fred Chomba agreeing with his judgement, Judge Strydom dismissed the appeal and ordered the Municipal Council to pay the legal costs of the 30 mobile home owners who had opposed the Council’s bid to persuade the courts to declare their caravan stand leases at Langstrand as invalid and to order the removal of their mobile homes from the area.The court’s decision means that the Walvis Bay Municipal Council will for about another five years have to accept the presence of guests who, in the Council’s view, have outstayed their welcome at Langstrand.The all-white predecessor of the current Municipal Council decided on December 6 1989 to award the first permanent site where a mobile home could be parked in the Langstrand caravan park to someone who had written to the Municipality to ask that a permanent site be allocated to him.Initially, these sites where mobile homes could be set up were leased for one-year terms, which could be renewed.On October 26 1993, only about four months before South Africa’s rule over Walvis Bay was to officially come to an end with the Walvis Bay enclave’s reincorporation into Namibia, the Municipal Council decided that rent of N$150 a month should be charged for each mobile home stand at Langstrand, that this will increase by ten per cent a year, and that a lease period of nine years and eleven months should apply for all these stands.In terms of the lease agreements that the then Mayor and Town Clerk of Walvis Bay signed with mobile home owners leasing stands at Langstrand, the lease could, after the lapse of a first period of nine years and eleven months, be renewed for one further period of nine years and eleven months, Judge Strydom noted in his judgement.This means that the leases should be reaching the end of their lives by 2013.The Municipal Council attacked the leases with claims that some of these agreements had not been approved by the Municipal Council, and that none of the renewal clauses contained in the leases had been approved by the Council.As a result, it was argued, the renewal clauses and the leases that were not specifically approved by the Council were beyond the powers of the Council and had to be declared null and void.According to the Council, the income received from the leases is “paltry,” Judge Strydom summarised their case.The Council claimed that the land on which the caravan park is situated at Langstrand is prime property that could be sold for more than N$3 million, and that the development of the land would not only generate income for the municipality, but also create jobs and other benefits for “a greater number of people”.When the Mayor and Town Clerk signed lease contracts with the Langstrand mobile home owners, they did so on the authority of the Municipal Council, Judge Strydom found.The Council decision of October 26 2003 did not require that the written agreements concluded with mobile home owners again had to be put before the Council for its approval, and did not require that the matter should again come up for review before the Council at the end of the lease period before the lease period could be extended, he further found.As a result of his findings, Judge Strydom rejected the argument that the lease agreements and extension had been beyond the Municipal Council’s powers.The Municipal Council cannot now go back on an agreement that had been legally concluded on its behalf, Judge Strydom indicated.He stated: “(I)f the Council did not give the necessary instructions to enter into these agreements the Council cannot now deny authorisation because if the agreements had been concluded on behalf of the Council, which indeed they were, the Council is bound by it.”Norman Arendse, SC, argued the Council’s case in both the Supreme Court and High Court.Loetter Wepener, SC, represented the mobile home owners who opposed the case.