INLSA
Sbu Sithole
Bronwyn Fourie
bronwyn.fourie@inl.co.za
Virginia Airport operators have won their battle with the eThekwini municipality – city manager S’bu Sithole has agreed they be given new long-term leases.
The agreement, which needs to be approved by the relevant committee and the council, will end almost a year of struggle after Sithole reneged on the council’s agreement that the operators be issued 10-year-leases early last year. This was after some of the operators had already signed their new leases.
Sithole put the operators on month-to-month leases and had been searching for alternative sites for the airport after receiving various proposals for the site.
Last year he told The Mercury that he wanted to convert the airport site into a mixed-use development zone.
The operators refused to accept that their leases were not valid. After numerous attempts to discuss the issue with the municipality, they went the legal route, giving the city a deadline to engage with them before they approached the courts.
Daryl Mann, the owner of Aero Natal and who led the legal fight for the leases on behalf of the operators, and his attorney met Sithole on Friday.
Through a lawyer’s letter Mann advised Sithole of the city’s legal obligation to provide for general aviation.
Representatives of the city’s legal team, as well as the deputy mayor and economic development head, Nomvuso Shabalala,were also present.
Mann said he and the other operators were not making unreasonable demands and had, in the meeting, agreed to an initial five-year lease, with no option of notice from the municipality, and then another five years with an 18-month notice option, provided a “suitable” alternative site was found for the airport.
A “suitable” alternative site meant the operators must be satisfied with it and all research and planning must be done.
This included environmental impact assessments, agreement with surrounding residents, and Civil Aviation Authority and Air Traffic Control approval. The site must be able to accommodate all the operators’ requirements such as a runway, taxi way, fuel needs, lighting, and security.
“I believe that finding another site will be difficult, so as far as I am concerned we have another effective 10-year lease. But, if they do find a suitable site, then we are happy with the 18-month notice to move,” Mann said.
He said that although the agreement with Sithole was, at this stage, only verbal and in principle, the city manager had given it his blessing.
The new leases would be effective as of the date they were signed.
Sithole said he and the operators had come to a “workable solution” about the way forward, but that the proposals agreed to by the parties needed to be taken to committee level and then the council.
He said he would prefer not to discuss the issue in the media until it had followed the process, but added that there was now a “common approach” on the way forward.
The process should be finalised by the end of March.
