Thank you to everyone who joined the meeting about fighting the development in the Century City lake. If you were not there you can still help! It can be briefly summarized as follows. The developers have appealed the Municipal Planning Tribunal decision to deny their application to develop ie build a 5 story apartment block, on 2 banks of the Lake that is between Century View, Century on Lake and Century Place.
We have objected to this development twice before and won. We can do this for one last time! The appeal process is as follow: Email your comments on the development and/or appeal document to appeals.blaauwberg@capetown.gov.za BEFORE Friday the 21st of February. This can be as long or as short as you like but remember to appeal to your politicians! These documents will be collated and given to the Executive Mayor’s Planning Appeals Advisory Panel (PAAP) which consists of Councillors, legal advisors and technical advisors. They will evaluate all case related information and debate the appeal received whereupon the Executive Mayor will make the final decision.
He will give final ruling on whether the development (or a revised version of it) may go ahead or not.
This is where we need to stand together united against the developer and Century City and show our local government that we care about our beautiful green areas, lakes, bird life and nature. We need to not only write a letter but appeal to Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis Councilor Fabian Ah Sing on every platform we have! Take to social media, emails, letters, interviews, pull strings, go to events, anything we can do to sway them that this must not go ahead. Remember who we are up against… people with very deep pockets that have spent a lot of money thus far. But we can win with perseverance and passion!
Please contact us for more ideas but the main community objections are: (In your own words please)
Destroying nature, beauty, flora and fauna. It is not “just” a storm water retention pond anymore. It has developed into a natural habitat for birds and wildlife as Century City continues to be developed
Increase in traffic
It has been rejected twice by the municipality for good reason
They promote it to COCT as a much needed ‘medium income apartments’ but at R1m to R3.6m this is hardly what the city needs
5 stories is really excessive – too much height variance with surrounding houses
They have called ground level – the level of the lake - which is way below the ground level of Skyliner Avenue, just to get extra height
We pay over R50m in levies to Century City to look after our best interests, not sell beautiful existing green spaces off to developers for more money
Access/exit by Century on Lake will be impossible. Cars literally at right angles
It is a forced development. They are not building “on” the land but removing it and building over the water
If you did not know about this previously then there are serious procedural flaws in the public participation process that the developer is in breach of
If your property looks in any way over this lake of course it’s value will be negatively affected and especially during construction
Why has it INCREASED in size and coverage since the first application? Money and greed based?
An already overloaded sewerage system
Please contact Susan Magner 0833201145 susan@magnerproperties.co.za if you have any contacts in journalism or political contacts or anything you think may help after reading the above. Thank you