Many issues surround racecourse development
CAPETONIANS are now aware that permission has been given by the City Council to develop Kenilworth Racecourse to include a hotel, houses, a restaurant, bigger quarantine areas for horses and more. The following are just three issues that will negatively impact the plants and animals which call the area home:
No environmental impact assessment has been done, under the law this is illegal;
Lack of public awareness – only two small adverts were placed in papers, which ensured that the minimum number of people would see them, and thus follow due process against this development if they opposed it;
Failure to comply with development approval conditions of 1999 – the area proposed for development forms part of the City of Cape Town’s Biodiversity Network, which severely undermines the integrity of this network as no studies have been undertaken.
Of particular distress is the potential extinction of the endangered micro-frog and Cape platanna.
I wonder if nepotism is at play here – does someone run in the “high-up” circles of the council, and thus get preferential treatment to push developments like this through without following due process? The South African motto on our beautiful coat of arms should be changed to “in this country, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”.
I condemn and object to this proposed development in the strongest possible terms. For further information on this matter, please email me: ellen76seven@gmail.com.
ELLEN FEDELE Plumstead