The final comments of the Impact and Assessment Committee for Heritage Western Cape dismissed the River Club's Impact Assessment as not compliant with provisions of Section 38(3) of the National Heritage Resources Act. It it failed to map the relevant heritage resources of the site, specifically the intangible heritage significances. It relied on what they called “ecological rather than cultural values” because it argued that the “river itself is the only tangible visual element which survives as a resources which warrants protection. IACOM says this assumption “negates in its entirely the exceedingly high historic and symbolic significance of the site identified in all previous studies, and submitted continuously through the process by the relevant I&APs.” The HIA has downplayed the open, low-lying, green, riverine character of the whole site, and undervalued the significance of the Heritage Resources generally. Emphatically, they argued that the River Club should have been graded as part of a comprehensive consideration of the whole TRUP site. 

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The image illustrate the density of this development - taken from the developer's application, so we are not making it up. The tallest buildings are twice the height of the tallest building in Observatory and there are many of them.

It's time to have the public speak out against this wanton destruction of a heritage resource and valuable open space.