, the City of Cape Town, the Western Cape government and the Western Cape First Nations Collective.
Property development companies, he said, are well aware of the risk and costs associated with delays and obtaining necessary approvals. “Those are higher when one has, as here, a site that requires rezoning, departures from land use planning policies, the site has specific ecological heritage qualities and there is a high degree of public opposition to the proposed development.”plans to house its new African headquarters at the redeveloped River Club.
“How then can it be suggested that the intangible heritage that one associates with an associative cultural landscape is not permanently harmed by the transformation of that very landscape from an open green space to one with massive buildings reaching in various instances to 10 storeys, plus the raising of the underlying land?” he added.
The development, he said, will rehabilitate the canalised course of the Liesbeek River, incorporating among others, an eco-trail, indigenous herb garden, amphitheatre for rituals or performances and a First Nations media centre to serve as sites of memory and living cultural practice and celebration. “What is proposed is immeasurably better than what has ever been there before in recent memory.