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City ditches big legacy projects

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Making public transport more affordable and attractive, promoting walking and cycling, encouraging densification of housing along transport routes, taking over the rail service, and encouraging businesses to allow remote working and flexible hours: These are some of the proposals outlined in the City of Cape Town’s new transport plan.… Read more

No urgency to stop River Club development, rules court

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  • Contempt of court application to be heard on 11 and 12 October
  • Challenge to Goringhaicona leadership joined to hearings

Construction of the controversial multi-billion rand development at the River Club in Observatory continues despite legal challenges to the development.

Last month, an urgent application for an interdict was brought by the Observatory Civic Association (OCA) against the developers, Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust (LLPT) for resuming work despite a court order to halt construction, pending the hearing of a contempt of court application.… Read more

River Club opposition subject to faceless smear campaign

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Anonymous pamphlets and a website are being used in an apparent attempt to hijack the Observatory Civic Association in order to smother litigation against the controversial River Club development.

Thousands of full-colour pamphlets were distributed door-to-door in Observatory on three different occasions in September.… Read more

Social housing in Sea Point

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  • Premier says section of Tafelberg site is being explored for well-located social housing, but appeal litigation drags on
  • Housing activists reiterate calls for social housing at Tafelberg, say there is no legal barrier to development

— Two years since the Western Cape High Court set aside the sale of the Tafelberg property (formerly the Tafelberg Remedial School) in Sea Point, the Western Cape Government says it will use a portion of the site for social housing.… Read more

River Club’s court clash

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  • High Court to hear contempt of court arguments against River Club directors next week
  • Developers have resumed construction despite High Court order to stop all work until a review of government’s authorisations is heard
  • Development opposition leader Tauriq Jenkins’ leadership of the Goringhaicona challenged

The contempt of court case against company directors behind the contentious R4,5bn Amazon-tenanted River Club development, for resuming construction at the site despite a High Court interdict to stop work, was postponed yet again at the Western Cape High Court yesterday afternoon.… Read more

Data shows we’re in deep sh*t

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  • Latest Green Drop report papers over the ecological devastation caused by wastewater treatment failure
  • The widely hailed resuscitation of the Green Drop report reveals the extent of South Africa’s wastewater treatment failure, but data shows the situation is even more dire

The long awaited Green Drop report paints a bleak picture of sewage treatment failure across South Africa.… Read more

Inner city social housing – five years later

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  • Council last week resolved to invite public comment for social housing on two large city-owned land parcels
  • The sites are part of 11 centrally located sites mooted for social housing in 2017
  • Move welcomed by housing advocates, despite slow progress

It has taken more than five years for the City of Cape Town to release two large portions of centrally located land for social housing.… Read more

Five deaths as child diarrhoea cases surge

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  • Reported cases of diarrhoea in children under five in Cape Town rose by 146% during February
  • At least five children as a result
  • World Health Organisation cites lack of sanitation, and sewage among causes of child diarrhoea
  • Sewage flows on streets in Cape Town’s poorest areas but city not investigating any link between sewage spills and child diarrhoea

With her 18-month-old daughter suffering from acute diarrhoea in mid-February, Novangele Nyikana left the one-room shack she shares with her partner and  children, and sought help at the Khayelitsha hospital in Cape Town.… Read more

River Club opposition excluded from Obs ward committee

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The award-winning Observatory Civic Association, which has led the opposition to the River Club development, has been excluded from the ward committee in ward 57 following new rules being adopted by the city in January.

Ward committees were established by the Municipal Structures Act “in order to enhance participatory democracy in local government” and are supposed to be a direct link between communities and the municipality.… Read more