On 12 December 2022, the LLPT published a response in the Daily Maverick yet again disputing the heritage significance of the River Club site. Responding to an earlier article by a Daily Maverick journalist, the LLPT produced the extraordinary fiction that it is misleading to claim that the River Club site is “currently being considered by the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) for protection” and implied (1) that the significance of the site was based on untested claims by Jenkins and London and (2) that SAHRA needed to take heed of the “court rulings and proceedings still under way.” Both claims are absurd and reflect the LLPTs insistence on denying that the land they purchased in 2015 was part of, not only the national estate under the Water Act, but of a historical cultural landscape deserving of heritage protection under the National Heritage Resources Act.

Numerous independent Heritage studies undertaken on the site as well as the  Two Rivers Urban Park (TRUP) area have concluded that the River Club site as part of the broader TRUP is of high heritage significance, warranting grading of the site as at least Provincial if not National Heritage status. 

In 2015, ACO and Associates noted that the “wetland at the confluence of the Liesbeek and Black Rivers, with the small area of high ground occupied by the Royal Observatory and the River Club, amount to the last surviving elements of this historical landscape” and concluded that “the Liesbeek River itself is worthy of declaration of a … Provincial Heritage Site along with the remaining open land, the confluence and wetland.” Since a co-author of the ACO report was also a consultant to the LLPT in 2018, helping to draft their Heritage Impact Assessment, it is inconceivable they were unaware of the significance of the land at the confluence of the rivers – exactly where the River Club is located. 

A subsequent baseline heritage study by Attwell 2017 noted that the entire Two River Urban Park, in which the River Club is located, was of “outstanding historical, symbolic scenic and amenity value” and would qualify as a Grade 2 (or provincial heritage) site. The report went on to note that the area of the River Club and Vaarschedrift crossing was of high symbolic significance because of its role as a historical crossing point for transhumant pastoralists entering the Peninsula area. The LLPT quote her report in their HIA so it is equally puzzling they pretend ignorance of the significance of the site. The Vaarschedrift crossing’s significance as part of the River Club site has been confirmed by an independent consultant whose research for the City of Cape Town has been submitted as part of our court papers.

It was these reports that prompted Heritage Western Cape to declare the River Club site provisionally protected under the National Heritage Resources Act (NHRA) in April 2018. In appealing the order, the LLPT requested and were provided reasons by Heritage Western Cape – the principal reason being to allow assessment and grading of the evidence heritage resources on site, which HWC believed warranted at least provincial heritage status, before any development decisions were taken.  Moreover, HWC’s submissions to the Appeal Tribunal noted that “the area forms part of the National Liberation and Resistance project of National Government.” 

Further, the LLPT were made well aware that should they pursue a development application before grading of the site was complete, it would be at their own risk – as stated in HWC meetings, minutes of which the developers cited in their subsequent appeal.

Even the developer’s own Heritage Consultant noted in a 2018 visit by a Heritage Appeal Tribunal that ‘there is no contesting of the significance of the site. The site is enormously important … there is no argument about that …”. You can view him saying so in the opening minutes of this video clip.  

It is thus evident that the LLPT were very well aware that the land they sought to develop and reap huge profits from was of very high heritage significance – to the extent they strenuously resisted the HWC protection order in 2018, appealing the order for 18 months, supported by the City and Province. 

But, whereas in 2018, the LLPT’s heritage consultant acknowledged the “enormously important” significance of the site, two years later, the same consultant came to a different conclusion that the site was of “low significance” and the only heritage element worth preserving and enhancing was the river. It is for that reason that Heritage Western Cape rejected the developers’ Heritage Impact Assessments (HIAs) for failing to map the key heritage indicators required in order to assess significance. This failing rendered the HIA incompatible with the requirements of law. LLPT know this, but continue to rely on their flawed HIAs to bleat on that the River Club site has low heritage significance. In fact, so blatant are the developers that they have gone as far as describing the intangible heritage of the site as ‘imagined’ in their court papers.

When the OCA, the GKKITC and TRUPA nominated the TRUP for provincial heritage status in February 2020, the LLPT response in the press was to say that we were “spreading lies and misinformation about the development and subverting legislated planning approval processes” and that ““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 site.”

Yet, in July 2021, HWC did exactly that – they considered the application and concluded that “The various reports have since convinced Heritage Specialists IACom and HWC Council that TRUP is needs to be Protected as either Provincial Heritage Grade or higher. We are therefore applying for urgent grading of the TRUP, as phase 1.” Heritage Western Cape is the competent heritage authority for the province by law. It was Heritage Western Cape that agreed that the site is of huge heritage importance, so much so that it deserved consideration by SAHRA as a national heritage site.

The innuendo therefore, that SAHRA “cannot rely on the views of the OCA and Jenkins alone” is fallacious, since it is Heritage Western Cape who referred the site for National Heritage Grading.

Lastly, the bizarre notion that the Cape High Court can decide on the heritage significance of the site is a legal fiction. The Cape High Court will examine whether the authorisation decisions were made legally. It is Heritage Western Cape that is the competent authority to decide if a site is of Provincial Heritage significance and refer to SAHRA if it is likely to have national heritage significance.  It is HWC who have declared the approvals unlawful.

The LLPT have continued to bleat that the heritage significance of the site has been legally assessed. We disagree. It is clear the authorities ignored their own environmental and heritage experts to expedite approvals that were unlawful to benefit purely economic interests.

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