Anger at DA’s new sub-council boundaries

THE CITY council has adopted new sub-council boundaries despite an outcry mainly from communities on the western seaboard that would split them into two sub-councils.

Over 1 000 comments were received during last month’s public participation process to select a DA or an ANC proposal to recluster the city’s 116 wards into 24 sub-councils.

Motivating for the DA’s proposal at a council meeting on Wednesday, mayco member for corporate services Xanthea Limberg said the new boundaries would help to integrate communities.

The proposed boundaries are based on the city’s health districts and new area-based delivery plans.

But the ANC and ACDP said the DA’s proposal will have the opposite effect, especially in areas such as Blouberg, Milnerton, Table View, Khayelitsha, Delft, Mitchells Plain and Philippi.

The ANC’s Delmaine Cottee said it was outrageous that people living in Delft South and the N2 Gateway should have to attend sub-council meetings in Bonteheuwel.

In the party’s Khayelitsha stronghold, wards will also be split between sub-councils with wards 95 and 96 now forming part of sub-council 24 based in Strand. “The city retains its rich versus poor apartheid boundary style,” Cottee said.

The ACDP’s Demetri Dudley said the DA would have lost votes had it revealed its sub-council boundary plan ahead of the August 3 elections. He took particular issue with the splitting of wards from Milnerton to Atlantis which previously formed sub-council 1.

Now, wards 107 and 113 which include Table View and Parklands, will become part of sub-council 3 based in Parow, while ward 55, which includes parts of Milnerton, Brooklyn and Century City will become part of sub-council 15, based in Pinelands.