Camps Bay & Clifton Ratepayers & Association

Thursday, 15 April 2021

The City of Cape Town has been accused of changing parking requirements for some areas on the Atlantic Seaboard without any public participation.

Sea Point, Fresnaye and Bantry Bay Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association (SFB) claim the City has approved parking requirements without consulting the public.

According to the Sea Point, Fresnaye and Bantry Bay Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association (SFB), in October last year, they were provided with a demolition application for a residential home in Oldfield Road, next to the park in a Heritage Overlay Zone.

They said, as part of part of the assessment, the committee investigated the planned development for this property and was informed that the developer planned to erect a building with 22 “studios” on the 588sqm plot with a provision of eight parking bays.

They said, in the past, for every apartment at least one parking bay would have been required and, therefore, a departure would have been requested which was not the case here. Hence the committee enquired about the reason.

“To all our surprise, it emerged that council had changed the parking requirements for Green Point and large part of Sea Point and as a result, no parking spaces and, therefore, no departures will be required in future for any developments below Ocean View Drive. This was all done without any public participation.”

They said these revised parking requirements paved the way for a new developer’s product – the “studio” or “micro apartment“.

“Under the auspices of ‘affordable housing’ tiny one-room apartments are sold at sqm prices of R 50 000 and more.

“Who will buy and stay in these 17 to 28 sqm apartments for a price of more than R 1 million or monthly cost in excess of R 10 000? Certainly not local residents. In our view this new product line is aimed at investors that can manage such small scale investments and are intrigued by prospected high short term rentals (e.g. AirBnB). It is a nonsensical hypothesis that such tenants will not rent cars that need to be parked and will only use public transport,” they said.

“What will be the effects on our neighbourhood and the existing hospitality infrastructure in Sea Point? Would anyone want to live for an extended period of time in a building where holidaymakers party and change on a daily basis in summer, whereas in winter the place is deserted?”

They said meetings have been held recently with those responsible and they await the outcomes with interest.

“In our view, such a significant decision should have required public participation. Furthermore, it is of great concern that developers had knowledge of these changes well in advance and have been able to plan and apply for building permits based on these changes while ratepayers and residents organisations were completely unaware of these issues.”

The SFB said it is of the impression that the primary objective of the change in parking requirements is the City’s drive for “densification“ and, at its core, the increase of its rates ”income”.

“In many areas, the disproportionate ratio of rates collected to rates spent has reached proportions that can only be called a ‘rich tax’.”

In June 2014, the City announced that they approved the maps demarcating the reduced parking requirements for development in priority areas which are served by public transport.

This, they said was the next step in the City’s efforts to promote development close to public transport at a higher density.

Responding to this, the City’s mayoral committee member for spatial planning and environment, Marian Nieuwoudt, said the introduction of the concept of PT1&2 parking standards into the Development Management Scheme (DMS) and its predecessor, namely the City of Cape Town Zoning Scheme (CTZS) since 2013, was to give effect to the City’s strategies to support an effective, efficient and viable public transport system.

She said the PT1&2 provisions still provide a minimum parking requirement.

“A property owner or developer is therefore only required to provide the minimum standard but may still provide more parking.

“These provisions are an incentive to support the use of public transport and are not enforced as a maximum standard.”

She added in the most recent update of the PT1&2 map, the provision of road-based public transport was assessed.

“The Sea Point, Fresnaye and Bantry Bay areas are particularly well-served by the MyCiTi feeder service, as well as Golden Arrow buses and minibus taxis. In fact, the MyCiTi feeder service along this route is the highest functioning feeder service in the city,” she said.

“I advise the residents to please submit comments and suggestions for the review of the Development Management Scheme that is currently under way. The closing date for comments is April 23. This is an ideal opportunity for residents to influence the future of the built environment in their areas.”

To comment on this, visit: www.capetown.gov.za/haveyoursay.

Comments and suggestions to be taken into account in the review process can be submitted to lums@capetown.gov.za

Thursday, 1 April 2021

New principal for Camps Bay High

Sinazo Mkoko

Atlantic Sun

Louis Mostert will take over as the school's principal from next month.

From May 1, Camps Bay High School will officially have a new principal.

Louis Mostert is due to take up his role as the school’s principal from next month.

Mr Mostert has been acting principal since the start of this year, taking over the reins from Dave de Korte who retired at the end of December 2020.

Camps Bay High School’s governing body chairperson, Werner Thetard, said they are delighted that the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) accepted their nomination as there can be no one better suited for the position. “Mr Mostert understands how important it is for us to create a nurturing environment where learners have the opportunity to safely explore their limits, ensuring that they strive for the highest in all their endeavours,” he said.

Mr Mostert said he started his teaching career at Camps Bay High School some 33 years ago and he has been a proud member of the Camps Bay school community for all those years. “ For over 10 years, I was the school’s deputy principal and head of academics and mathematics and I am looking forward to taking up the role as principal, and taking forward the school’s vision ‘Strength in Diversity’ to ensure there is always an environment of tolerance and respect on the Camps Bay High School campus,” he said.

The selection committee involved in the principal’s appointment, conducted a rigorous selection process, which involved many hours of work sifting through the applications and ensuring that the required WCED protocols were adhered to.

Mr Thetard said the new principal’s commitment to the school cannot be rivalled. “His energy and passion for forward-thinking educational practices will make sure that our learners are given the best opportunities in academics, sport, culture and service so that they leave Camps Bay High School as well-rounded young adults ready for real world challenges.

“Our school needs a leader who connects with parents, learners and staff, and someone who is a problem-solver. Mr Mostert ticks all of these boxes and his priorities align well with the direction of our school,”he said.

He added that they look forward to working with Mr Mostert who will officially lead the management of the school from May 1.

Sunday, 7 March 2021

The River Club, environmental protection and respect for first nation heritage

Background:

The developers of the River Club are planning to build a huge mixed use development on the land at the confluence of the Black and Liesbeek Rivers, land that is of immense historical and spiritual significance for the indigenous Khoi peoples, as well as being a sensitive environmental precinct including a threatened wetland and biodiversity hotspot. The land was once public land owned by the South African Railways but earmarked for white employees as a leisure resort, ignoring the profound sacred importance of the river confluence for Khoi history. The site was part of the first resistance wars by the Khoi against colonial intrusion, and the site of the first appropriation of land by the Dutch settlers. As such, it is rich in heritage, particularly the intangible heritage associated with the Open Riverine valley and the sense of place afforded by the open space to which it is zoned.

In short, the current owners of the River Club in 2015, LLP Pty ltd, purchased the bare dominium from PRASA in 2015 in a speculative deal, then sold the land on at a substantial profit to a new entity called the LLPT. The LLPT then began work toward on a development application on the site which is a hugely inappropriate and dense Mixed-Use commercial development with Amazon as anchor tennant. The development will generate billions of rands profit for an influential and highly connected consortium of financiers and property developers. The land lies on a flood plain and will require hugely intrusive engineering works to elevate the development out of the flood line. It will place 18 buildings on a 14 ha site, ranging from 20 to 46 m high, and a total floor space of 150 000 square meters. This is an incredibly dense and huge development which will sit at the apex of the Two Rivers Urban Park, a designated conservation area, which is also slated for inclusion in the National Heritage Liberation Trail and a possible UNESCO nomination. The adjacent South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) is already a National Heritage Site and more than 60 First Nation Groups, NGOs and Civic Associations have applied for the areas to be graded as a Provincial Heritage Site and the Goringhaicona First Nations Council have similarly applied for the site to be graded a National Heritage resource.

Despite the huge environmental and heritage importance of the site, financial considerations appear to have driven the acceptance by the authorities of the development in the form of two flawed decisions, one by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning of the Western Cape Government (DEADP) in August 2020 to grant an environmental authorisation under the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA), and one by the Municipal Planning Tribunal of the City of Cape Town to permit rezoning of the land from Open Space to Mixed Use in September 2020.

The DEADP appeal authority, the MEC, has since rejected appeals against the EA in a February 2021 decision which attempts to ‘cure’ fundamental flaws in the original EA decision-making process.

For example, when Heritage Western Cape, the competent Heritage Authority for the province, declared the River Club site provisionally protected under the National Heritage Resources Act (NHRA), as a precaution against development decisions being made prior to heritage grading of the site, the City of Cape Town and the DEADP joined the developers in appealing the protection order, on the basis that the existing processes under NEMA would protect heritage resources involved. Yet, when HWC rejected the Heritage Impact Assessment of the development as failing to meet the requirements of NHRA, the DEADP simply ignored their comments and gave approval, a decision HWC described in their appeal of the EA as ‘unlawful.’ It is this decision which Minister Bredell now seems to have ‘cured’ by his tortuous correspondence with HWC in December 2020 and January 2021, which he has now relied on to reject the appeals.

Similarly, the DEADP and the MPT decisions ignore repeated warnings by the City’s own Environmental Management Department that the proposed development violated multiple environmental policies, including those on Climate Change, and should not be supported.

The City recently (Feb 2021) convened a Planning Appeals Advisory Panel (PAAP) to hear the rezoning appeals. The timing of the Minister’s rejection of the EA appeal was such that it was released the day before the PAAP which enabled the developers to trumpet this at the Panel as part of their opposition to the appeals. The collusion between the City and Province is pushing this development through against scientific, professional and community opposition is clear.

Thus, while there is widespread opposition from Civil Society, there is also a considerable body of opposition from professional and scientific agencies against the development. Yet, as Crispin Olver described in this book “A House Divided” about the City of Cape Town, the democratic process of local government decisions making are unduly influenced by powerful developers who are able to capture decisions to suit their own interests.

This campaign is therefore also a matter of democracy and of community voice in municipal decision making.

The community response:

The Observatory Civic Association has been an active partner and one of the founding members of Civic Action for Public Participation (CAPP), a Civic driven initiative to an active civic movement under the banner of reclaiming civic space for the public good. A principle of this initiative is the need for community voice to have effective mechanisms to influence decisions and to hold public officials and elected politicians accountable.

Opposing the River Club development, the OCA has formed alliances with other Civics, and, critically, with a number of Khoi cultural and representative groups who oppose the River Club development on a range of reasons, being

a. The development is a violation of the cultural heritage and dignity of the Khoi people;

b. The developer is hugely damaging to the environment and violates almost all of the City’s environmental protection policies; and

c. The process by which the developer obtained approvals was irregular and demonstrate the failure of democratic governance at a municipal level in Cape Town.

The OCA has mobilised multiple objections and appeals both to the City’s rezoning process and the DEADP EA approval; we have jointly submitted an application with 60 First Nation groups, Civics and NGO to have the Two Rivers Urban Park declared a Provincial Heritage Site; we have written public opinions and lobbied decision makers; we have a petition with over 22 000 signatories opposing the development; we have recently commissioned Social Media and Design consultants to assist us on our campaign. We have created a number of different networks, and a Liesbeek Action Campaign group, drawing in multiple volunteers and partners to campaign against the development.

However, the OCA is a voluntary Civic Association that relies on members who are not employed to do such work. Most members work full time and assist OCA work after hours. The OCA does not have a large propaganda budget unlike the developers who are able to regularly access newspaper space for their opinions. Instead, our campaign has largely relied on volunteers who believe in the cause.

Way Forward:

The OCA convened a meeting in February 2021 with other civics, NGOs and the Goringhaicona to plan a campaign over the next months which. We anticipate the campaign playing out with the following elements:

a. An intensive social media campaign providing key messaging and mobilising support;

b. Public events such as a march for International Human Rights Day or other such public holidays;

c. Community action, such as picketing;

d. Letter writing to key public figures;

e. Mobilising of key public figures to speak out in favour of our campaign;

f. Promoting our message in the media through letters, articles, opinion pieces;

g. Building and consolidating coalitions with other partners across sectors;

h. Research to support our campaign (e.g. an analysis of the MPT decision-making patterns over the past years as part of dossier to support a complaint to the public protector; call on the SAHRC to investigate);

i. Networking with international groups (first nation; environmental; civic democracy) to support our cause;

j. Public naming and shaming of the collusion of powerful developers with party political interests;

k. Assisting with fundraising – both crowdfunding and sourcing of external donors and the research needed for these steps;

We are likely also to pursue high court review of either or both of the decisions. Since we believe there is immense political pressure to approve this development, and since the behaviour of planning officials in the provincial and municipal authorities are not transparent, impartial or evidence-based, we anticipate having to fight this both through lawfare and through public mobilisation. Anyone wishing to assist, please contact Edwin at comms@obs.org.za.

For more information regarding the development, please visit the Observatory Civic Association website.

Thursday, 3 December 2020

Blue flag status for Atlantic seaboard beaches

By Sinazo Mkoko

Atlantic Sun

Camps Bay beach

Camps Bay and Clifton Fourth are among the 10 City of Cape Town beaches which have been awarded Blue Flag status by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA).

According to the City, this follows a national audit of beaches submitted for assessment by each municipality.

WESSA used 33 criteria to determine if each beach meets the level of service excellence required for Blue Flag recognition.

Each beach is measured in four categories: environmental education and awareness, water quality, environmental management, and safety services.

The individual criteria allow for an in-depth analysis of a variety of areas of competence, which include universal access for the disabled, elderly and mothers with young children, control of domestic animals such as dogs on beaches, and availability of interpretive signage and effective waste management.

Mayor Dan Plato said the City is pleased to once again receive this recognition. “Being able to retain the status of all 10 Blue Flag beaches can be attributed to the work of our environmental staff, who have ensured the quality and cleanliness of these beaches have been consistently maintained. These spaces are especially important as we head into the summer months, enabling residents to enjoy nature and the ocean while being able to safely social distance in line with Covid-19 regulations.”

Mayoral committee member for community services and health, Zahid Badroodien, said beaches are popular places to spend time with family and friends in the outdoors and to enjoy the summer weather. After months of restricted movement, it is expected that more people will flock to the City’s beaches this summer.

“The Western Cape Premier has also announced the resurgence of Covid-19 in the Cape Town metropole which will impact on the summer season. I urge all residents to adhere to the safety regulations when they are at our beaches and pools. We are also extremely proud that 10 of the City’s beaches once again ticked all the boxes and will be flying the flag of excellence,” he said.

Blue Flag is an educational programme, designed to encourage participating municipalities to meet high environmental and international standards sustainably.

The City said an old asbestos roof was replaced at Camps Bay as part of getting the beaches ready for the holiday season.

The other beaches which received Blue Flag status are Llandudno, Bikini Beach, Fish Hoek, Melkbosstrand, Mnandi, Muizenberg, Strandfontein and Silwerstroom.

The Blue Flag season will run until January 31 for Bikini Beach, Clifton Fourth, Llandudno, Fish Hoek, Melkbosstrand, Mnandi and Silwerstroom.

Camps Bay, Muizenberg and Strandfontein will have an extended season until March 31. The Blue Flag applicable times at all of these beaches is from 10am to 6pm daily.

At a Camps Bay Clifton and Ratepayers’ Association (CBCRA) meeting on Monday last week, chairman, Chris Willemse, said they continue to oppose the City regarding the millions of litres of raw sewerage that it pumps into the bay at Camps Bay on a daily basis. As reported previously, he said, the City continues to deny any damage to the environment and is satisfied that the system of dumping pollutants into the sea is sustainable despite the contrary opinion and established facts by all academics in this field.

Camps Bay community cares for the homeless

Sinazo Mkoko

Atlantic Sun

The Community who Cares

A community-based organisation is helping to change the lives of those who live on the streets of Camps Bay.

The Community who Cares (CWC) was started in 2018, by Alan Marsh, the chairman of the Camps Bay Community Police Forum (CPF), and is a collaboration between the Camps Bay and Clifton Ratepayers’ Association (CBCRA), the Business Forum, SAPS, Camps Bay CSI (CBCSI), Ward 54 councillor Nicola Jowell, and NGOs such as Homestead and StreetSmart.

At the recent annual general meeting of the CBCRA, resident Theresa Massaglia said donations totalling R400 000 had been received, covering the costs of masks, sanitiser, and to support feeding schemes during the lockdown.

“Transformation of homeless persons is the key, rather than community handouts of money or food,” she said.

She said over the years, they had realised that one could never just give up on someone, even when at times they may give up on themself.

“We can simply never give up the plight of helping others get off the dreadful streets. It is dangerous in the way it pulls one in and tries to keep you there. Feeding these habits are even worse and prolong the urgency for change,” she said.