Oude Molen Eco-Village under threat?

Pia of Mother City Living recently (in April 2009) visited and wrote about the Oude Molen Eco-Village. It is an excellent article, so please go and read it.

I was dismayed when I read the following paragraph:

“Unfortunately, though, Linda tells me, all of this is at risk of being removed. The tenants are apparently being squeezed out, one by one, to make way for a mass housing project that is likely to have a rather negative impact not only on the environment, but on the lives of all the community members currently sustained by the eco-village.”

No!!!

What an awful thought!

I felt so strongly about it, that I just left the following comment on her site:

“I am so delighted that you have written this beautiful article about my very favourite farmstall in the whole of Cape Town. Since hubby and I moved to Pinelands a couple of years ago, we’ve been frequent visitors to the Millstone, and LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!

We keep telling our friends about it, dragging family and visitors there at any opportunity, and blogging about it every chance I get. It is *absolutely* an oasis for stressed-out city folk like me who wish they could move into the countryside but can’t right now. It’s the place I go when I want to unwind, to inhale the smell of the horses, to get away from the demands of work, or just to sit and gaze at the mountain.

Everytime I visit, there is something happening there… youngsters riding horses, dogs running around, a kiddies’ party, a drumming lesson, little ones climbing up into the tree-house and swinging from the tyre, …. it’s never boring, there’s always something to photograph or write about, and the food is just superlative.

When I read that the whole place may disappear soon to make way for yet more dreadful housing developments, my heart almost stopped. This cannot be allowed to happen.

Yes, almost the entire eco-village looks dilapidated, run-down and neglected, but there is so much potential there for improvement *as an eco-village* and not as a housing development. What an awful, sickening thought.

PLEASE can you keep us updated on this?

And I will continue telling everyone I know about this amazing, beautiful place and that it is under threat and needs all our support.”

So, next time you’re in Cape Town, PLEASE go and have a chococcino at the Millstone, order one of their superlative quiches, have a freshly made carrot and apple juice, and buy a whole goody-bag of assorted nuts, still-warm bread from the woodfired oven, glasses of preserves and assorted jams. It makes a wonderful, thoughtful present for your friends, by the way!

And also spend some time talking to the horses and petting the dogs… and amble down the little pathway to the opening in the wattle-fence, where you can access the big field that slopes down to the wetlands around the Liesbeek River.

I promise you that you will love it.

—-

Contact details of the Millstone Farm Stall:
Linda Malone
Telephone number: 021 447 8226
Cellphone number: 082 407 8910
Physical address: Oude Molen Eco Village, Alexandra Street, Pinelands
Website: Millstone Farm Stall
Email: millstone@polka.co.za

Links:
Review on Mother City Living website
Review on Urban Sprout website
Review on SA Venues website
Some history about the Oude Molen Eco-Village
More about the Eco-Village