We are not done yet.

Amazingly, we collected more than 10 000 signatures to support our campaign, objecting to the inappropriate and destructive development proposed at the River Club. These signatures were collected in the space of a week – almost one signature every minute! That is an incredible response. We submitted these signatures to the EIA consultants on the night of the 27th Feb to send on to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning as they said they would do.  You can read the OCA’s additional set of objections to the River Club BAR here . We included the petition and many of the comments you all made. Our objection was significantly strengthened by the voices of more than 10 000 people! Thank you so much all for that.

But that doesn’t mean this petition is over. Far from it. The petition has since grown by more than 2000 since then and has more than 13000 signatures now as I write this. We want to grow it further because, while we very much welcome the huge support from overseas, we want to see 10 000 South Africans sign on. So, don’t stop supporting this campaign and especially encourage your South African friends and colleagues who care about the environment and heritage to sign on to this campaign.

The 27th Feb was also significant for another reason. Not only did we submit the supplementary objection to the River Club BAR, but we also submitted an application to Heritage Western Cape to declare the entire Two Rivers Urban Park (TRUP) a Provincial Heritage Resource. The River Club forms part of the TRUP. The application has been on the cards since December 2019, when the Goringhaicona High Council, the OCA and the Two Rivers Urban Park Association, along with more than 50 other First Nation groups, Civics and NGOs, gave notice that we will be nominating the Two Rivers Urban Park for heritage grading as a Provincial Heritage Resource (see the front table at the Dec 2019 press conference pictured above: Chief Noel, political adviser to the Paramountcy Johannes of Cochoqua, Paramount Chief Fredericks of the !Aman and Nama, Paramount Chief Aran of the Goringhaicona and Chief Arendse of the Qoranha Transfrontier). We completed all the material necessary for the application and were thus able to submit the application also on the 27th of February 2020.

The application seeks to ensure that the process of grading the Two Rivers Urban Park for its heritage status, (a long-standing commitment for many years, expressed by many stakeholders and authorities, including Heritage Western Cape), is not delayed any further.

We want to see the area, which has huge importance for cultural, historical and environmental reasons, properly assessed for its heritage resources, before any planning decisions are made and concrete is irreversibly laid on land which represents the precious tangible and intangible heritage of the area. We believe that the area is worthy of Provincial Heritage status, if not National Heritage status. We are not alone in this view. For example, even the Heritage Impact Assessment for the Two Rivers Local Spatial Development Framework by the City of Cape Town in 2019 recognises exactly that level of heritage significance.

HWC attempted to ensure that the River Club development did not pre-empt this grading by putting a Provisional Protection order out for the River Club site in April 2018, but that Protection Order has, in our opinion, been sabotaged by an appeal  lodged by the developers, the City of Cape Town, the Department of Transport and Public Works and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning. We believe this appeal is groundless and have motivated as such at the Appeal Tribunal hearings over the past two years. However, the Appeal has been beset by endless procedural delays which have dragged out over two years and have not seen HWC implement the grading of the River Club, which the Protection Order was meant to facilitate.

We have therefore, as organisations of civil society representing a wide swathe of stakeholders, taken the matter in our hands because we are tired of waiting. We are tired of obfuscating tactics. We are tired of seeing the land being carved up for private profit while the heritage of the area is sold off for high-end business campuses and for accommodation predominantly for the rich and mobile. The groups supporting this application represent 13 Khoi and San organisations and royal houses, 33 civic/ratepayer associations and a further 15 NGOs active in the civic space. We are united in our common goal – to ensure that the Two Rivers Urban Park is recognised as, at the very least, a Provincial Heritage Resource. It is precious public space and cannot be commodified.

What that means for the River Club development is obvious – they will have to ensure that any development on the River Club site is consistent with a Grade 2 provincial heritage status. Their current plans most definitely would not be consistent. This fact has been obvious to the developers for some time, but they have ignored it by pushing ahead with an inappropriate high-impact and destructive development regardless. The developers were warned by Heritage Western Cape in 2017 not to proceed with their development until the grading assessment of the TRUP had been completed and that if they did proceed, it would be at their own risk. The developers chose to push ahead with an application, which is what precipitated the Protection Order.

We live in a constitutional democracy which ensures that the rich and powerful can’t get away with special treatment. Or using lawyers and legal processes to block the protection of heritage resources.

We look forward to the communities’ voices finally finding expression in meaningful action to ensure the Two Rivers Urban Park, and the River Club, located within the TRUP, is recognised for the significant heritage resource that it is.