The South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) delegation had hardly returned to their offices after visiting the Two Rivers Urban Park (TRUP) on Wednesday, 13 October, as part of the process of considering the nomination of the TRUP for national heritage status, when they received an email from the Liesbeek Leisure Property Trust (LLPT) claiming that our campaign was spreading “incorrect and untrue facts.” In the email, the LLPT’s lawyer claimed that “there is no process of “grading the site” … at this juncture.”
Aside from the oxymoron of an ‘untrue fact’, this is sophistry with words. SAHRA’s mandate is to consider nominations for national heritage status and, as part of the process, will inspect the nominated site. Their email notifying the LLPT (as a property owner in the TRUP) explained: “Following Heritage Western Cape’s assessment, the Two Rivers Urban Park nomination was referred to SAHRA for consideration for declaration as a national heritage site. Further, SAHRA also received an application for the provisional protection of Erf 151832. SAHRA is thereby mandated in terms of Section 27 (1) to assess the significance of the site as nominated. SAHRA may in accordance to Section 25 (2) (c), inspect any heritage resource it may protect and therefore, SAHRA, as part of the assessment of a site, conducts such an inspection.”
This means that the process of grading has started.
The original nomination for provincial heritage status was submitted in February 2020 by the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoi Indigenous Traditional Council (GKKITC), the Observatory Civic (OCA) and the Two Rivers Urban Park Association (TRUPA), supported by more than 50 other Khoi groups, Civic Associations and NGOs. It was copied to all landowners in the TRUP, including the LLPT.
The LLPT has consistently tried to evade the fact that the River Club site is part of what was certainly considered a Provincial Heritage Site by multiple reports, including the ACO Associates Report in 2015, the TRUP Baseline study in 2017, the HIA for the Two Rivers LSDF in 2019 and the Directive of the Ministerial Appeal Tribunal on Provisional Protection of the River Club in 2020. As SAHRA confirmed in their notification to property owners in the TRUP in 2021, Heritage Western Cape (HWC) assessed the site in July 2021 as being worthy of National Heritage Status and referred it to SAHRA for national heritage grading.
What has been the LLPT’s public positions?
1. When asked by a journalist for comment on our nomination for heritage grading in February 2020, the LLPT noted as follows: “Heritage Western Cape is the appropriate provincial agency that determines the grading and assessment of provincial heritage resources and are better placed to comment on the appropriateness of any proposed private nomination for Provincial Heritage Status of a site.” Yet, for almost two years, the LLPT had been involved in an appeal against the Provisional Protection Order issued by HWC in 2018, intended to allow the completion of heritage grading of the TRUP including the land occupied by the River Club.
2. The April 2020 directive of the Heritage Appeal Tribunal on provisional protection of the River Club, which the LLPT would have received as the first appellant, also noted clearly that affected parties “may pursue an application to declare the TRUP area as a provincial (see section 27(1) and (2) of the NHRA) or national (see section 27(5) and 27(8) of the NHRA) heritage site.”
3. The LLPT were therefore not unaware of the TRUP nomination.
4. Yet, in an article in Business Live on 6 July 2021, an LLPT director claimed that “it is not true that the site has been nominated for provincial heritage status.” Since the LLPT received a copy of the nomination on 27 February 2020 and had been advised by the HWC on 23 June 2021 that the nomination of the TRUP was to be discussed at the upcoming HWC Council meeting on 22 July 2021, they were fully aware at the time of the fact that the TRUP nomination had been received and was being considered. The LLPT statement in Business Live on 6 July is therefore false.
5. HWC decided at their Council meeting on 22 July to propose the TRUP for national heritage status. SAHRA noted this as “Following Heritage Western Cape’s assessment, the Two Rivers Urban Park nomination was referred to SAHRA for consideration for declaration as a national heritage site.” However, in an article bemoaning “misinformation” about the River Club, the LLPT reinterpreted this HWC decision as “Heritage Western Cape (HWC) recently met and made the decision not to accept the nomination for the area to be declared a provincial heritage site.”
6. And this week, the LLPT claim that there is no process of grading the site as a National Heritage Resource!
You be the judge of who is spreading misinformation.
Noteworthy, as well, is the LLPT’s insistence that, when SAHRA conduct a site visit at the River Club, the nominators of the site are not welcome on their property, despite SAHRA’s request that “the nominators for the site … be present to point out the significance they have identified in the site.”
If the LLPT were really concerned about honouring and sustaining the critical importance of the TRUP as an heritage site, they would have taken seriously the many reports, studies, submissions and a Tribunal finding in order to ensure that “any development … is sensitive to the cultural significance of the area” and “responds sufficiently to the identified design informants deemed appropriate for this area and resource.”
Instead, they funded an HIA that “reduced this significance to a set of ecological values, provided for the most part to post-rationalize a wholly intrusive development model, rather than inform appropriate development.”
While SAHRA’s processes unfold, we are seeking urgent review of what we believe are unlawful and invalid decisions allowing the redevelopment to proceed.
We need your financial support to pursue this court challenge. Please consider assisting us with the legal fees. You can contribute at our fundraising site or directly via EFT here .
You can also visit our website and follow the Liesbeek Action Campaign on twitter: @LiesbeekAction.
Now is the time to Make the Liesbeek Matter!