It seems the LLPT is intent on pursuing their development. We wrote to them on Tuesday 11th to ask they hold off on any earthworks pending a High Court Review. They replied the next day declining to do so. So, we are heading to the High Court.
Please support our fundraising at our fundraising site as this will be an expensive challenge. We are up against interests that have a lot of money, including those aligned with the richest man in the world. So, this is a real David versus Goliath challenge. And in case you are wondering, we haven’t yet had any reply to our appeal to Ms Mackenzie Scott, Bezos’ former wife, who is amongst the richest women in the world, and has committed herself to being a billionaire philanthropist.
Money clearly does make a big difference. For example, the First Nation groups who support the River Club development were able this week to distribute a 16-page colour newspaper, titled First Nation News, in hard print copy, throughout parts of Observatory. We don’t know how many copies were distributed but that’s an expensive business to print 16 pages of colour newspaper and hand deliver to hundreds of households. The newspaper has never been circulated in Observatory before so we can only assume it is a reaction to a very successful Freedom Day Walk in which different stakeholders, including a number of First Nation groups, spoke out against the River Club development as an insult to First Nations (see the picture above).
Where did the funding come from all of a sudden to produce a 16-page colour newspaper and distribute it? Well, we wrote to Jody Aufrichtig of the LLPT to ask if he funded it but he didn’t reply so we don’t know if he did or if he didn’t. But since it contains numerous hagiographic descriptions of how Jody has been very receptive to the First Nation Collective, you might be mistaken for assuming it was some kind of advertising for this development.
But Jody’s reluctance to say where he puts his money is not new.
In 2019, we wrote, as the Observatory Civic Association, to a number of developers who were active in proposing large developments in Observatory over the preceding years, to ask them to declare any funding to political parties. As Crispian Olver pointed out in his book on the politics of the City of Cape Town, A House Divided, development decisions can create instant wealth for certain individuals and he argued that such decisions might be subject to political pressures to serve party interests. At the same time, pressure on political parties has gained momentum, with a Constitutional Court ruling that disclosure of information on political parties’ private donations is essential so that citizens can make informed political choices. This has led to a 2020 amendment to the Promotion of Access to Information Act, which mandates political parties to share information about any donations in excess of R100,000.
But when we asked Jody about any funding to political parties in 2019, he never replied to us, just as he didn’t reply now when we asked who funded the First Nation News this month. That’s a bit of a contradiction to how Jody likes to present his development when he says “We have always approached this project with maximum transparency.” How exactly is it transparent to decline to provide information as to whether you have funded the production and distribution of a newspaper supporting the development delivered to the doorsteps of Observatory residents?
And during the consultations on the Basic Assessment Report, there was another strange incident. The owner of a house at risk to flooding as a result of the development was approached by the River Club’s hydrologists with the offer to floodproof their house. The owners asked the hydrologists to engage the Civic on the matter. They never did, and when asked by the homeowner why they did not, the hydrologist said their client did not want them to do so. Jody has denied this instruction but we see no reason why an Observatory resident would have made that up.
Oh, and here is another peculiar notion of how Jody understands transparency. The environmental consultants for the LLPT posted documents in the application for an Environmental Authorisation on their website, which showed the size of the Amazon campus and the details of how bulky it would be. But then they took those documents down before the due date for comments. When we asked that the documents be restored, the Amazon documents were not put back, only other documents that had been removed. When we queried why the annexures with information on Amazon were not replaced, we were told that “the document(s) you referred to inadvertently included proprietary information required for the rezoning application, and not intended for the environmental application.” But these documents were actually never included in the submissions for the rezoning, whose 703 Mb of documents provide no images of the Amazon Campus nor mention of its tight security nor is parking burden, nor the requirement for its buildings to have a “very distinctive rectangular footprint.”
What exactly were the developers trying to hide from public scrutiny what was ‘proprietary?’
All of that doesn’t look like a record of “maximum transparency.”
There are huge profits at stake here and Amazon, the company associated with the Richest man in the world, is an anchor tenant. Given the money to be made, we can expect lots of misinformation being put out there about our intentions and who stands to benefit. We know it won’t be pleasant but we will stick to the truth and to the principles that (1) this development will destroy rather than honour Khoi heritage and (2) it is inconsistent with a range of environmental policies that are meant to be guiding development decisions in this city, but which are subjugated to desire for investment and wealth accumulation.
The River Club is an integral part of the Two Rivers Urban Park, not a commercial park, not a car park, nor a theme park with Khoi iconography to justify the total annihilation of intangible heritage. We are, as shown in the photo at the Freedom Day walk, supported by a wide range of civics, Khoi groups and NGOs who believe that justice is not for sale. We are supported by more than 47 000 people who have signed this petition. Most importantly, we are supported by the truth. We will not be stopped.