SOUTH AFRICA: A new development has captured attention in South Africa, writes Bill Corcoran in the Western Cape
Heritage Park is unique in South Africa, but maybe not for long.
Resembling a modern version of a medieval walled city, it is billed as one of the country's safest communities by its creator, developer George Hazeldon, whose idea of a completely secure town came in response to the rampant violence that gripped South Africa following the demise of apartheid.
Nearly 12 years after the end of apartheid, the Rainbow Nation's preoccupation with violence is still all-consuming. About 20,000 people are murdered annually and the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation maintains a rape occurs every 83 seconds.
In a country obsessed with security, Heritage Park appears to embody society's logical next step to combat its worst fears.
About 30 minutes drive from Cape Town next to upmarket Somerset West, the 200-plus hectare (500-acre) plot is surrounded by a 3km-long and 3m-high electric fence and visitors must pass through numerous checkpoints before they get to someone's front door.
A private force of 36 security personnel watch the town's gated entry points - where the 1,500 residents use swipe cards to get in - and patrol the streets, guarding the residents and their 650 homes.
By the time the town is finished in 2012, the fenced-in community will contain 4,000 homes, a business district, a retirement village, as well as schools, churches, park areas and a couple of lakes.
Hazeldon (61) says: "South Africa was going through a pretty violent period in the mid-1990s and people wanted security above all else. I didn't want to leave South Africa because of what was going on, but I had a young family to think about, so I decided to build a secure community.
"But we created it in such a way that the electric fence can't be seen from inside the town and the security is kept very low key. It is successful though - we have had no break-ins to date."
Hazeldon is also a resident.
His detractors claim the concept is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to South Africa's endemic problem with crime and there are better approaches to tackling the dilemma, such as increasing a community's involvement in policing.
However, local councillor Gisela Jespersen believes the concept of an entirely secure town is gaining acceptance among her peers in the Western Cape.
"This idea of people living and working in the same area is growing here," she says. "I live in a retirement village and I can go walking around it in the middle of the night without being afraid. We can keep the front and back doors unlocked; I feel secure."
If sales in Heritage Park's current housing market are anything to go by, there appears to be many South Africans who feel the same as Ms Jespersen.
House sales are buoyant and plans to build the next phase of the project, another 800 units, are already in place. As of last week, a 150sq m house with a double garage has a purchase price of €190,000, while the smaller 75sq m houses cost in the region of €96,000.
Indeed, since the first houses were finished in 2000, their prices have gone up by 200 to 300 per cent, says Hazeldon.
There have also been claims that Hazeldon is trying to create a segregated society; if one were to take into account his past and the town's ethnic make-up, the theory would not be considered fanciful.
In 1975 Hazeldon made a failed attempt to win a seat in the British parliament as a candidate for the right-wing National Front Party.
Following his flirtation with politics, he moved to apartheid South Africa, and he admits he quickly came to the conclusion he had found Utopia.
To further fuel the detractors' suspicions, the vast majority of residents who live in Heritage Park are of Caucasian extraction.
Nevertheless, he rubbishes claims he is creating a segregated society.
"If you can afford to buy a house here you can live here, no matter who you are or where you're from: there is no vetting process. I think the reason the community is predominantly white is because that is how society works here.
"Blacks stay in black communities, coloureds in coloured ones and so on.
"Some of the residents here have complained about having black neighbours - there are about four or five black residents - but there are racists in every community in South Africa," he insists.
As proof of his good intentions Hazeldon highlights the fact he has taken it upon himself to provide jobs for the thousands of unemployed South Africans who live in the surrounding areas.
"We are starting a school to train the locals in building skills. I could employee 10,000 people here over the coming years if they are able to do the work and that's what I intend to do. I'm not a racist. In 1975 I was naive and I'm now trying to make up for what I didn't see then."
John Garret was a squatter who lived on the Heritage Park site before Hazeldon bought it in the late 1990s.
As part of the deal, Hazeldon agreed to provide all the raw materials to build a small township next to Heritage Park in which the 200 dispossessed families would be housed.
"We did not know what his intentions were at the start and we were suspicious, but it has worked out okay," Garret says, while hammering a pot outside his Hazeldon-sponsored home in Chris Nissen Park.
"It is a beautiful place and we get on well with most of the residents. They give us jobs so we have a good relationship; I have no problem with them at all."