Next week, on Tuesday the 24th February, the City’s Planning Appeals Advisory Panel (PAAP) will be meeting to hear the appeals of 11 appellants against the decision by the Municipal Planning Tribunal to approve the rezoning necessary for the proposed LLPT re-development of the River Club. These include organisations such as Ndifuna Ukwazi, the Two Rivers Urban Park Association, Redefine Properties (Black River Park), the Pinelands Ratepayers Association, the OCA, represented by Cormac Cullinan and the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council, represented by the Legal Resources Centre.

Although there are only 11 appellants who have, despite the obstacles of the incredibly bureaucratic, arbitrary and obstructive process, managed to persist in our effort, the rezoning advertised in September 2018 attracted 180 objections from individuals, organisations and businesses across Cape Town. That was in 2018. By 2020, the application to Department of the Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEADP) for an environmental authorisation had attracted close to 500 Interested and Affected Parties who objected to the development. By now, over 21 000 people have signed this petition to say no to an outsized, inappropriate development, which negates the history of resistance by indigenous Khoi people in the area and the deep cultural and spiritual links that they hold with the valley and which will harm our Climate Change resilience and threaten the environment.

So, when we go to the PAAP meeting, we will be going with huge and growing support from the people of Cape Town, South Africa and the world who care about the future of this precious piece of land and who care about justice.

We don’t know whether the PAAP will be open to hearing the evidence but we have to hope it will be a fair and impartial hearing, unlike the MPT which railroaded a decision contrary to City Policies and without all the information it needed at hand to make the decision.

Will the PAAP hear the voice of all those who believe the development is a travesty? We are not sure, since the City officials have stonewalled a request to take account of this petition by insisting that the requester “provide us with proof that indeed you submitted a petition and an appeal to the City within the time frame provided for in the Municipal Planning By-law” and that it should be “submitted to the City as per Section 91 … from the Municipal Planning By-law.”

That is very convenient and is a typical official’s response which hides behind illogical rules. The problem is that the petition could not be submitted into the process since the City advertised the rezoning once only in August 2018, and the MPT only heard the application more than two years later without re-advertising the application. This petition was launched in 2020 so we could not submit it in September 2018. Moreover, prior to the MPT hearing in September 2020, Civic representatives were told, in no uncertain terms, by an MPT official that we could not present any new information to the MPT – as in “You are not permitted to raise new information at the Municipal Planning Tribunal (MPT), as the applicant would not have had the opportunity to respond to same, nor would the panel of the MPT been given an opportunity to examine said information ahead of the scheduled meeting.”

This mean we couldn’t submit the petition to the MPT because the City failed to re-advertise the application when there is new information (even though the Municipal Planning Bylaw gives the City the power to do so). But when you ask to submit new information, you are told should have submitted it at the time through the proper channels and you can’t do so now. It’s a perfect Catch 22 situation (and note that the City permits the developer to submit any new information they want without the public being able to comment).

So, we have a Kafkaeque twisting of rules to stop the public from having its say. If you have a chance, please post us message of support in this petition and tell the City they must listen to the public's voice. We will take these messages to the City’s PAAP meeting in the hope that they listen to the public and do not put profits ahead of environment, heritage and sustainable development. Please also share this with other who may want to support this cause.

We also hope that the City will realise that celebrating the health of Cape Town’s urban waterways (while it has neglected the Liesbeek River, left its maintenance to the community and is willing to infill the original river course, against its own Climate Change Policies) and its glee over being shortlisted for an international award  for sustainability will mean little other than hypocrisy if they go ahead with this development. The indivisible elements of Sustainable Development are all three of the economy, society and the environment – and all three are inter-related and inter-dependent.  You cannot have economic development in the absence of a cohesive society and if the environment is irrevocably destroyed, no amount of economic spend or social engineering will save us.

Putting the economic interests of the developers and the City’s thirst for rates ahead of society and the environment will destroy our future, even if it benefits some entities in the short-term.