Dear supporters

I write to you with great sadness to let you know that the Observatory Civic Association (OCA) has had to give up its court challenge to the River Club redevelopment. We were forced to take this step, not because we don’t believe we would in the end win the case, but simply because we have not been able to raise sufficient funds to keep going with the challenge.

When we started this campaign in early 2021, and launched court proceedings in August 2021, we expected it would be a tough campaign and were prepared to go all out to raise the money needed to succeed. What we did not bargain on, however, was a sustained campaign of lawfare from proponents of the redevelopment. When we first started out, we anticipated two court actions – the interim interdict and the review under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA) – but by late 2022, we had to manage nine different legal actions, most of which were sprung or forced upon us by our opponents. Remember, these are opponents with unlimited access to funds, whether it is the accrued wealth of private developers, underwritten by Amazon, or public authorities who use our rates and taxes to get the best legal silks to act for them. The last two decisions against the OCA have awarded costs against us for reasons we believe entirely unfounded in law.

This lawfare has simply drained the resources we managed to raise – in total, about R1.4 million of which 96% was crowdfunded from individuals and organisations willing to support our cause.

But, sadly, even that funding has proven to be insufficient to get our day in court when ranged against five opposing legal teams, each with senior counsel to argue their case.

So, we have had to withdraw from the case, in exchange for the respondents agreeing to waive the bulk of claims for costs against the OCA (of the order of many millions of Rands).

The City of Cape Town has sought to use the Appeal Court decision and our withdrawal to suggest our court actions were vexatious and that the City’s approval of the development was done correctly. Neither statement is true. Our court intervention in terms of PAJA was based on evidence supported in appeals by Heritage Western Cape and by the City’s own Environmental and Heritage management staff, as well as evidence that the City had erroneously argued they were not enjoined under the National Heritage Resources Act to protect the intangible heritage of the site. This was evidence that the High Court had to consider in the review and which point to the failure to consider material information when the rezoning decision was made – far from correctly. For example, the recent heavy rains have inundated land adjacent to the development and reminded us that climate resilience remains under threat if you choose to infill rivers and build on a floodplain – as is evident by viewing the Amazon building from the flooded Malta Park across the road.

Our campaign has been a long and bruising road, and one which has seen opponents of the redevelopment vilified, threatened, defamed, libelled, subjected to anonymous smears, intimidation and the undermining of our funding platform. We have been subjected to a generously funded media machine that fabricated propaganda against us on a massive scale. But we regret none of it because it was a fight for justice against the power of wealthy unscrupulous opponents, the new VOC, supported by Amazon – one of the wealthiest corporations in the world, and City and provincial officials – to make decisions about land that is both environmentally significant and a sacred heritage site for indigenous peoples.

The OCA does not know if the Gorinighaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council (GKKITC) will be able to restore its mandate to fight the redevelopment and, if it does, we hope that its voice will finally be shown to be the true voice for traditional indigenous groups who were deliberately excluded from the decision-making process.

As a local Civic Association, the OCA will continue to demand accountability of our public authorities and for meaningful public participation when it comes to development decisions, rather than the gerrymandered pretence of a tick-box exercise so beloved of our planning authorities.

We wish to thank, from the bottom of our hearts, the many, many, many supporters – thousands of you, who have joined our protests, donated to our campaign, written letters of objection, signed petitions, spoken to your neighbours and families and expressed solidarity with us in so many important ways. We are extremely grateful for your support.

And because we will continue to campaign outside the courts against the development and against the threats to the wider Two River Urban Park (there are already two development applications being considered in the Park), we hope you will continue to support us – attending our activities, donating financially and responding to calls to sign petitions or write letters to the authorities.

Yes to safe spaces for people, plants and animal!

No to concrete jungles!

Yes to fair decision-making; no to corrupt processes!

Yes to Khoi dignity and history; no to lip service!

More Bizos; less Bezos!

The struggle to Make the Liesbeek Matter continues.