Don't turn Clifton heritage site into just another wealthy white suburb: Albie Sachs

Don't turn Clifton heritage site into just another wealthy white suburb: Albie Sachs

Albie Sachs | 09 September, 2015 11:59

Maidens Cove, between Clifton and Camps Bay, was the only place on the Atlantic coastline where people of colour could braai in the 1970s. The city put a fence around it.
Image by: CLIFTONPICS.CO.ZA

I have an interest in this Clifton development. It's not just that I have a bungalow here.

When I came back from exile in 1990 and arrived at the airport I was asked where I wanted to go. If I went to my mother I would have gone to Gardens, which is a white area of Cape Town. If I went to Dullah and Farieda Omar I'd have headed for Rylands on the Cape Flats. If I went to Bulelani Ngcuka, I'd be going to Guguletu.

I felt that by making that choice, I would be making a decision about who I was and which city I wanted to go to. I couldn't bear to go to white South Africa - I didn't want to be a rebel in white Cape Town.

So I spent my first few visits with Dullah and Farieda. And then, slowly, I began to feel free to return to Clifton, where I had grown up.

Clifton was always something of an alternative area. It had a special quality. My mother used to say: "Tidy up, Uncle Moses is coming." She was the typist for Moses Kotane. My brother and I would pack away our toys in the bungalow basement.

Uncle Moses stayed in a flat in Clifton with Eddie Roux, the biologist and activist. Brian and Sonia Bunting had a house here and they had parties every New Year. For a day and a night people from the Flats and the townships would come to dance away the hours with defiant, multiracial joy.

It's not a surprise that David and Susan Rabkin had a little underground unit in a flat. Not only did the waves cover the sound of the duplicator, it was a less hostile area.

Len Lee-Warden, publisher of the New Age newspaper and a Treason Trialist, was arrested there. Then there were the Sestigers - the rebel Afrikaans writers who used to gather on 2nd Beach. Uys Krige, Jack Cope and Ingrid Jonker were the centre of that.

[Len Lee-Warden's story can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNPsnruC4mY]

Liberals like Gerald Gordon and Randolph Vigne were raided by the security police. And there were many gay people living here who felt less likely to be punished for expressing their sexuality.

Then Maiden's Cove, a tiny toehold to the only spot on the Atlantic coastline where people of colour could come. Not only for Christmas and New Year but throughout the year, to let their kids swim and to braai. The city put a fence around it, which is still evident. And Jews who couldn't go to Kelvin Grove were also allowed to patronise a club in what was seen as the "gat kant" of the city. But it was beautiful because it was not built up. Nature ruled, OK?

Shortly after my return from exile I was asked to speak at an architectural conference in Durban on healing our cities. Helen Zille helped me prepare my speech. We highlighted the importance of knitting together what apartheid had put asunder, emphasising the need for more public parks and recreational spaces for the majority.

Has Helen now considered this precious provincial heritage site as a perfect example of what we had in mind? And why do we hear only about getting ready for developers, and not from the city planners themselves? Why is the cart put before the horse? Why a dubious council decision to sell to private developers with no published land use, environmental, traffic or sewage reports? Why are normal procedures bypassed, everything rushed through under direct mayoral control, sidestepping normal forms of planning and zoning approval?

Why no advertisements on the radio, as required by law? Why have the real stakeholders - the people of poorer areas of Cape Town - not been engaged to get their views?

What was advertised basically as a project to upgrade the garages, has been transformed into the sale of this precious scenic reserve with unique flora and small animals. I will not comment on the lawfulness of the procedures followed - the matter might well go to court. But I have no doubt that if the voices of the people of Cape Town are properly canvassed and listened to, the overwhelming majority would say no to this development. It would make a few developers very rich, very quickly, and destroy a scenic and recreational environment of special meaning to the less well-off.

It is a source of joy today to see Clifton and Camps Bay through summer thronging with people from all over the peninsula. And it should be this theme that should be uppermost in the minds of the councillors who represent all the people of Cape Town, not just those of us fortunate to live nearby. We do not need to extend the apartheid divide by developing another wealthy, essentially white, suburb.

This is a truly golden opportunity to facilitate a recreational and scenic park of value to the whole of Cape Town. Maiden's Cove should be opened up and expanded into a spectacularly beautiful and accessible zone for Capetonians and tourists alike, part of the unique Cape Town experience.

The Urban Park on Green Point Common is an example of what could be done. Safe, attractive, open to everyone and used by everyone, with walkways, sports opportunities, restaurants and respect for nature.

Good can come out of bad. Let the discussion lead to a true upgrading of the area. The spatial and emotional wounds of apartheid are still with us. Let us heal rather than congeal. A scenic park beckons.

-Albie Sachs is a retired judge of the Constitutional Court. The next public meeting about the plan will be held at Cape Town Civic Centre at 10am on September 19