AGM 2018-05-07 Chair's Report

-->

A special welcome to our guest speaker tonight, Jaco Boshoff of the Iziko Museum. Also welcome to our local ward councillor, Shayne Ramsay. She will give a short address tonight but maybe it should be more of an opportunity for you to address her on issues that are of concern to you, the ratepayers of Camps Bay.

Tonight we give you a report back on the various matters that are being dealt with by your Association and also hear Jaco Boshoff’s fascinating research into the slave ship shipwreck off Clifton, many years ago.

So, please let me introduce you to Jaco Boshoff, who will enlighten you with an interesting piece of history, that still has social consequences, that occurred on our own beach.

Shayne Ramsey – councillor’s report

Byron Herbert     - MOP on Camps Bay beach

Chair’s report

The suburbs of Camps Bay and Clifton are seriously under threat by the City of Cape Town on 3 fronts at the moment:

The first is the Maidens Cove development. This prime piece of relatively unspoilt public open space, which also has huge socio-historical value, was sold off to a private developer for just over R1b at the end of last year.

This despite the fact that there was complete opposition to this development by Capetonians from Camps Bay to Mitchells Plain and from Scarborough to Belhar.

By law, the City had to provide public participation meetings on the proposed development. This it did, but having attended all the meetings, it was clear that the City was ticking the boxes again and not actually paying any attention to the opinions and sentiments of the people of Cape Town. Sadly, the civics of Cape Town – including the CBCRA – are used to this. When it comes to serving its friends in the development industry, the DA-led City has no interest in the ratepayers of Cape Town. And you will hear this from far and wide: For instance, the group attempting to stop de Lille and her cabal from expropriating the Philippi Horticultural Area for housing, will tell of a 10-year battle for sanity vs greed.

This area produces over 55% of Cape Town’s fresh supply of vegetables. The Cape Flats Aquifer, which lies under this area and is an incredibly important water resource, will also be negatively affected by development. The Bo-Kaap has major problems with the City planners, as does the Deep South areas like Kommetjie and Noordhoek.

However, there is good news. The Clifton Bungalow Owners Association has lodged an application with the Western Cape High Court to have this decision reviewed and set aside.

That Association has submitted a voluminous application and has raised many strong points, especially the environmental issue that this is a proclaimed scenic reserve, protected by law.

I think that it is imperative that we support the CBOA in this matter but obviously we need to be suitably funded to do so.

I would like this meeting to mandate the CBCRA to pursue the matter of the Maidens Cove development with a view to stopping it.

Byron has already given you the background on the MOP, which is the second threat to our community. The fact that the City is happy to dump millions of litres of raw effluent into Marine Protected Bay area is unconscionable.  Besides the immediate health hazard, there are very sinister long-term affects that will haunt future generations.

Not only that, but the City stealthily tries to over-densify Camps Bay at the same – with no increase in infrastructure such as sewerage, electricity and roads! This is simply disgraceful.

And this brings us to the third threat: The development at 96 Camps Bay Drive.

This has been raised at our previous meeting but a bit of history to bring all up to speed:

This erf is zoned GR2, as are many erven in Camps Bay, which allows for multiple dwellings and taller buildings. However, the title deed restrictions do not allow for this type of development.

Up until now, the many court cases to establish and maintain the praedial servitutal nature of these restrictions, that have been fought and won by this Association in particular, and many others in general have kept the lid on this type of over-densification.

Then in 2015, planning legislation changed in the country with the the enactment of SPLUMA, at national level, LUPA at provincial level and the MPB at local level.

At the same time, the Removal of Restrictions Act was repealed and planning decisions at local level devolved upon something called a municipal planning tribunal. This is effectively, a tribunal of private planning professional appointed by the executive mayor and paid for by the City.

It didn’t take long before the City and its planners, and those in private practice, started exploiting the situation by entertaining applications that removed all relevant title deed restrictions from the deeds thus allowing single dwellings to be converted into multiple units.

The argument from the City and the MPT is that all case law protecting property rights fell away with the new laws and they had total discretionary powers in deciding such matters.

However, the CBCRA strongly disagreed and was closely tracking the first case of this kind, the one at 96 Camps Bay Drive.

Basically, the MPT rejected all the objections from the CBCRA and surrounding neighbours and approved the development. We appealed that decision to Mayor de Lille and, unsurprisingly, this appeal was refused. You have to understand that planning decisions by this administration are very predictable and always in favour of developers at any cost. But it is important – and a legal requirement – that an aggrieved party exhausts all administrative options before taking a matter before a court of law. So we, too, tick boxes.

The CBCRA filed an application with the Western Cape High Court to review and set aside the MPT decision and de Lille’s rejection of our appeal.

In this matter, the CBCRA is represented by Adv Deon Irish SC, Adv Dale Lubbe and our attorney is Leon van Rensburg. This is a very formidable legal team.

The matter has been set down for hearing on the 28^th May 2018.

So far, the City, after initially strongly opposing the application, have folded and agreed to abide by the decision of the court. The developer, now basically up the creek with the City’s withdrawal, is trying to settle but not pay costs.

The CBCRA is not interested in anything but a High Court ruling which sets out clearly how such matters must be dealt with and whether the City has the right to remove or amend our constitutional property rights as enshrined in the Constitution.

If you look at the Zoning map on the screen, you will quickly realize that if we don’t win this case, then Camps Bay is doomed. Given the number of GR2 erven, Camps Bay could densify by at least 5 or 6 times in the next few years.

The developers are licking their lips and the City cannot wait for all the rates to come in! And from the City’s point of view, the current services can easily manage this – so no expense for it. Maybe we should take the Mayor (if she still is) and the senior DA politicians for a walk in Hove Road when it experiences its regular sewerage overflow – or maybe the Little Glen when the raw sewerage flows down the embankments into the Blinkwater River.

In any event, all the court documents are on the CBCRA website for those who wish to read through about 2000 pages of legal argument!

We will also update the site regarding progress in this matter.

As a final note on this court case, the MPT is not making any decisions on title deed restrictions until the case is settled. This after the CBCRA pointed out to it that it would be unethical, if not irregular, to make decisions that it knew to be compromised.

Planning

I would just like to alert you to a few issues that will be of interest:

Firstly, all applications that are received by this Association will be advertised (or posted) on the BlogSpot, added to that, all letters of objection or support by the CBCRA will also be posted.

So, visit the site regularly and keep up to date with what is being planned for Camps Bay. If you know of an application that isn’t posted on the blog, please advise us immediately – as we are meant to receive all Camps Bay, Clifton and Bakoven planning applications from the City.

There are many applications so one needs to be watchful.

We had a very concerning occurrence a few months back: Contractors erected a large Telkom cellphone mast on the property of the service station in Rontree Ave.

It was done unannounced and without any planning permission, based on Telkom’s contention that, as a SOE, they didn’t require permission.

The neighbours were outraged and lead by the immediate neighbour – and with the support of the CBCRA – a case was brought against Telkom. All went quiet for a while and then, as quickly as it went up, it was taken down.

This is clearly a great victory for the community but also underlines the constant threat that communitys’ face on a daily basis. Not to mention the costs involved in standing up for your rights against organs of state and local authorities that are shameless in spending our tax money on their fantasies.