It’s incredible. By 17h45 on the evening of Sunday 23rd Feb, the number of signatories to our objection to the River Club development, which started less than 5 days ago, had surpassed 5000 people. This is far more than we had anticipated at the outset of this campaign and really shows how strongly many people feel about this issue. It also shows that community voice can really make a difference.
It’s also really important because on numerous occasions the River Club’s developer has tried the use the press to dismiss the community’s objections as a “delay perpetuated by only a few in the community” and that it is only “a handful of residents” who “refuse to see the economic value of the project to the community and are determined to stand in his way.”
These claims were made after the developer attempted in August 2019 to join the OCA (the first time we have had any formal contact with LLPT - so much for his openness to consultation) in order to get membership figures for the OCA. In fact, so keen was the developer to get his hands on those figures that we received three emails in the space of 3 hours from LLPT asking for these figures. Having been subject to an attempted hostile take over by a developer in 2017 , and having democratically beaten off this capture, the OCA decided not to share our membership figures. However, that didn’t stop Jody Aufrichtig, the River Club developer, from manufacturing the idea that our opposition was based only on a handful of members and going to the press with these unfounded claims.
Your response, an overwhelming rejection of his project, is evidence that Jody Aufrichtig, the River Club developer, does not have a clue.
We are not a handful of residents and we are not a few in the community.
More than 5000 individuals have said no to his development. More than 50 First Nation groups, Civic Associations and NGOs came together in December 2019 to insist that the entire Two Rivers Urban Park, which includes the River Club, be graded for provincial heritage status before any development is considered in the Park.
Far from being a handful of individuals or a few community members, this is a very wide and representative swathe of people who care about the environment and about the loss of heritage that will result if his plans go ahead.
But on one point, Jody is correct. We certainly are determined to frustrate his efforts to steamroll an inappropriate and destructive development that does not belong in a culturally sensitive floodplain. But we do for good reason. It’s time that the developer heard this message and it’s time the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, who have to decide on this application, takes note as well.