Residents and Heritage Experts say:

         KEEP EARL STREET AN OPEN, GREEN, COMMUNITY SPACE!

In 2017, the City of Cape Town declared its intention to develop six social housing sites in Woodstock. Four of them are in a 250m radius around Earl Street. Despite not being consulted at the time, the community, its civic and stakeholders have supported five of the six social housing projects:

• The land has been released for (1) New Market Street and (2) St James is in the approval stages.
• (3) Pine Road  and (4) Dillon Lane have been approved and are waiting to break ground by the allocated social housing institution, SOHCO.
• (5) Heritage Western Cape (Heritage WC) has given the go-ahead for the former  Woodstock Hospital to be developed into social housing.

These five projects will create +- 1,080 social housing apartments which will welcome around 3,000 new residents to Woodstock. 900 of those flats will be within a 250m radius of one another: at (1) Pine Road, (2) Dillon Lane and the former Hospital (5). Currently, this area of Woodstock has about 3,000 residents, so this (community-supported) social housing will double the number of people living in Woodstock.

The sixth site is on Earl Street, directly opposite the former Hospital, also within the 250m radius. It is the bottom end of the park which has the Kids play park at the top and the Soccer & dog field in the middle. It currently houses the former Woodstock Bowling Green and community buildings (former Al Noor orphanage).

In May 2023, Heritage Western Cape made the decision that the Earl Street site should NOT become social housing, but be integrated into the rest of the park and improved as public, green, open community space.

This decision was based on:

• the number of residents in Woodstock currently (“one of the more densely populated suburbs in the City”)
• the number of new residents who will move into the social housing homes (“doubl[ing] the current population of the area”)
• the fact that “there is already a shortage of open space” and green space for the community
• research showing that “[t]he social and health benefits associated with open spaces are significant” and that “provision and maintenance of appropriate green space in urban areas may therefore make an important contribution to reducing health inequalities” especially in socio-economically stressed neighbourhoods.

The heritage experts emphasised that “every effort should therefore be made by the CCT to retain and enhance existing open spaces for the benefit of current and future generations.”

Despite Heritage Western Cape’s decision backed by irrefutable evidence, the City of Cape Town is appealing the decision. Instead of retaining and enhancing the open space, the City insists that it needs to be built up with a further 150 social housing apartments!

The community has, over a number of years, consistently expressed its need and wish to retain the entire park as open community space. Over the last year, the City has received various resident-driven proposals for community initiatives to assist with improving the park. 

The City has called us NIMBYs (Not in My Back Yarders), but this is BS (Bull S**t)! The community and the signatories of this petition support social housing. The green space needs to be retained, integrated and upgraded into an urban community park precisely so that the new residents and their children and the existing residents of Woodstock can benefit from it together.

We have therefore decided to put a make or break ultimatum to the City:

If you want the community to continue to support social housing in this area of Woodstock, keep your hands off the Earl Street open green community space!

We demand that the City

• retain the Earl  Street site as community open space
• engage the community to, together, integrate and improve the existing green space and community buildings at Earl Street including the kids park and soccer & dog field
• declare the Earl Street site as open space in the local LSDF
• show that it can make the 400 to 500 planned social housing at the Hospital work
• put pressure on SOHCO to build the social housing in Pine Road and Dillon Lane which is long overdue

Add your voice to our demands to retain this green open space for Woodstock’s current and future generations. Sign now!