Dear << Test First Name >>
The OCA held a successful AGM last Tuesday and some of the reports from that meeting are to be found below.
For those of you who support our campaign to stop the River Club development from going ahead, we have at last been granted the dates for our high court injunction to be heard. For more information, see below.
Hope You have a wonderful week. Kind regards.
Edwin Angless
(OCA Comms)
2021 AGM report backs
OCA Mancomm election results
Chair: Leslie London – For 27, Against 0, Abstentions 0
Treasurer: Joy Robinson – For 26, Against 1, Abstentions 0
Secretary: Sarah Driver-Jowitt – For 24, Against 2, Abstentions 1
Communications: Edwin Angless – For 25, Against 1, Abstentions 1
Car Park: DeVos Rabie – For 26, Against 0, Abstentions 1
Social Issues: Kiki Bisogno – For 25, Against 1, Abstentions 1
Business Forum: Akhona Simelane – For 26, Against 0, Abstentions 1
Portfolio TBA: Chloe Cormack – For 21, Against 3, Abstentions 3
No valid nominations were received for the positions of Deputy Chair, Arts Culture and Sport and Architecture and Heritage
HECI awards
At this year’s annual AGM which was held on Tuesday 7 December, the annual award for a Heritage and/or Environmental Consultant of Integrity (HECI) was presented to co-recipients Bridget O’Donoghue and Deirdre Prins-Solani.
SEE CERTIFICATE HERE
11 DEC 2021 —
Deputy Judge President Patricia Goliath has ordered that the interdict against the River Club redevelopment will finally be heard in the Western Cape High Court on 19, 20 & 21 January 2021. This is four months since the papers were finalised between the parties! While we are not happy with such a long delay, we are relieved that our day in court, once postponed, is now on track again. Because in the interim, the developers have lost no time in smearing us with false accusations in the press whilst barrelling ahead with putting as much concrete on the ground as possible.
You will see in the image above that the developers have started working on the Berkeley Road extension over the Black River. This is altering the area that is at the confluence of the Liesbeek and Black rivers, an area regarded as sacred for the Khoi. In 2015, Tim Hart, then an independent consultant, co-authored a study of the colonial and proto-historical significance of the Two Rivers Urban Park and argued that “… the valley of the Liesbeek, Black rivers, the confluence and remnants of the Salt River estuary … is an historical place and falls clearly within the ambit of the National Estate … The confluence of the Black and Liesbeek Rivers has special significance as it is possibly the last untransformed wetland in the study area.” Yet in 2021, this is exactly the site being destroyed by the Liesbeek Leisure Property Trust (LLPT) development on the basis of a Heritage Impact Assessment that says that “… apart from the Liesbeek River, the site itself has little obvious heritage significance.”