Stellenbosch complainers & a R25 billion delivery bike 😳

If you own an Airbnb in Stellenbosch, you can breathe a little easier. For now.

Cape Town has published a new draft Short-Term Letting By-law that would require properties advertised on platforms like Airbnb to register with the City, display an official registration number and allow booking platforms to share availability and occupancy data with the municipality.

And here’s the bit that will make some property owners sit up straight.

Properties used for short-term letting for more than 50% of their annual room-night capacity could be classified as commercial accommodation and charged commercial rather than residential property rates. The City says this isn't a new Airbnb tax, but rather a way of enforcing its existing rates policy. Any rating-category changes would only kick in from 1 July 2027.

Meanwhile, Stellenbosch appears to be taking a much lighter approach. There is currently no equivalent new registration regime being rolled out here, with the municipality sticking largely to its existing zoning framework.

Which is interesting for a town where you sometimes wonder whether there are more Airbnbs than actual residents.

The bigger question is whether Stellenbosch eventually follows Cape Town.

Because once one municipality discovers a new form, registration number and possible rates category, history suggests that paperwork rarely struggles to find its way across the mountain. 😅

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Getting a driver's licence in South Africa is generally a fairly simple process.

You book.

You wait.

You arrive.

You wait.

You fill in a form.

You wait.

You discover you needed a different form.

You go home.

Apparently, however, there was another option in Stellenbosch.

A former senior superintendent at the Stellenbosch Driving Licence Testing Centre has been sentenced after pleading guilty to six counts of corruption for issuing learner's and driver's licences in exchange for cash. Between March and July 2022, applicants paid him a total of R5,550.

He received a six-year prison sentence, with three years suspended for five years.

Which means somewhere out there on the R44 is potentially someone who didn't pass parallel parking.

Not because they struggled with it.

Because they may never have actually had to do it.

So the next time someone indicates right and then turns left, don't get angry.

There may be paperwork behind this.

You could announce tomorrow that Stellenbosch is getting a brand-new development that will create 2,000 jobs, provide hundreds of new homes, fix three intersections and include a free puppy for every resident.

Someone will comment:

“But has anyone considered the increased paw traffic?”

There is a special breed of person who appears to wake up every morning, open Facebook and think:

Right. What are we furious about today?

New housing development? Too much development.

No new housing? Housing is unaffordable.

New road? Waste of taxpayers' money.

No new road? The traffic is unacceptable.

New restaurant? Stellenbosch is losing its character.

Restaurant closes? So sad to see local businesses struggling.

You cannot win.

And the truly impressive thing about the Professional Complainer is their extraordinary range of expertise.

Town planning. Economics. Traffic engineering. Architecture. Environmental science. Education. Municipal finance. Drainage.

All mastered from the comments section while waiting for their cappuccino.

Of course, questioning developments and holding decision-makers accountable is important. Not every development is good simply because someone promises jobs and housing.

But there is a difference between asking good questions and automatically opposing absolutely everything.

Sometimes progress is messy. Sometimes a new development means more cars, more people and a few years of construction.

It can also mean homes, jobs, businesses, infrastructure and opportunity.

So perhaps before typing “DISGRACEFUL!!!” under the next community Facebook post, ask yourself one simple question:

Am I identifying a genuine problem... or have I just become the person who complains about everything?

Because if Stellenbosch ever announces a development that creates jobs, solves traffic, lowers property prices, protects every tree and inconveniences absolutely nobody...

Someone will still complain about the font on the sign.

Remember when Checkers Sixty60 launched and it basically felt like:

"Oh cool, Checkers can bring my milk in an hour."

Well, that escalated quickly.

Sixty60 has just recorded R25.5 BILLION in sales for the year to June 2026.

Twenty. Five. Billion. Rand.

To put that into perspective, the entire Takealot Group, including Takealot.com and Mr D, reported revenue of R17.7 billion for its latest financial year.

So the turquoise motorbike bringing your forgotten coriander is now generating more annual sales than the revenue of South Africa's biggest e-commerce group. 😳

And Sixty60 grew another 34.5% in just one year, adding about R6.6 billion in sales.

It has become one of those businesses where, once you use it regularly, you genuinely start wondering how you lived before it.

We used to plan grocery shopping.

Write a list. Drive to Checkers. Find parking. Get a trolley. Walk 4km through the shop because the milk and bread have deliberately been placed in different provinces. Queue. Pay. Drive home.

Now you realise you're out of coffee at 10:07am and by 10:43am a man on a turquoise scooter is standing outside your house holding coffee, bananas, dishwasher tablets and six other things you absolutely did not need.

That is the genius of Sixty60.

They didn't just make grocery shopping online.

They made it easier than going to the shop.

And once a business removes enough friction from something we all have to do anyway, our behaviour changes frighteningly quickly.

South African online retail is now expected to reach around R159 billion this year, representing roughly 10% of the country's retail market.

But perhaps the most impressive part of the Sixty60 story is that it launched only in 2019.

Seven years later: R25.5 billion in annual sales.

Not bad for an app whose primary purpose seems to be delivering the one bloody ingredient you forgot when you went shopping yesterday.

There’s a strange thing that happens in life.

We spend years wishing for something. A business of our own. A family. A house. A promotion. More responsibility. More customers. More opportunities.

Then one day, we get it.

And we start complaining about it.

The business is stressful. The kids are exhausting. The house needs constant maintenance. There’s too much work. The phone never stops ringing.

But sometimes it’s worth stopping and remembering:

This might be the life you once wished for.

You just forgot what it looked like from the other side.

The dream never came with a promise that it would be easy. In fact, many of the things worth having come with problems attached.

So when life feels overwhelming, take a step back before complaining about everything that’s difficult.

Look around.

Some of your biggest problems today might simply be the weight of carrying something you once desperately wanted.

And that’s not always a bad problem to have.

Spring is keeping things fairly mild this week. The latest forecast points to a cooler, cloudier stretch after Wednesday, but no significant rain expected through the weekend. Forecast models differ slightly on exact temperatures, so these are the latest consolidated figures.

☀️ Wednesday: Hazy sunshine and noticeably cooler. 22°C / 14°C

☁️ Thursday: Mostly overcast and cooler. 20°C / 14°C

🌤️ Friday: Some sunshine, becoming cloudier and quite breezy later. 21°C / 14°C

⛅ Saturday: Mostly cloudy with a few brighter breaks. 21°C / 15°C

☁️ Sunday: Cloudy to partly cloudy and mild. 22°C / 14°C

🌧️ Rain watch: At the moment there’s no proper rain event forecast from Wednesday through Sunday. Some forecasts show a chance of a light shower around the weekend, but anything substantial currently looks more likely from Monday/Tuesday onwards.

The Stellenbosch Brief verdict: ☀️ Make the most of Wednesday. 🧥 Keep a light jacket nearby from Thursday. 💨 Friday could get a little blowy. 🌧️ And for once, the weekend doesn’t look like it’s plotting to ruin your plans.

As always, thanks for reading. If you spot something in town worth knowing, reply and tell us. Half the best Stellenbosch stories begin that way.

See you around town,
Stellenbosch Brief

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