Community needs take precedence

THE Observatory Civic Association is glad to read that the City of Cape Town subjects all building development applications to “a stringent system of due process.”

However, that has not been our experience and the experience of many civic associations in the greater Cape Town area. For example, one developer submitted plans for a large apartment building in Observatory, which incorrectly excluded certain aspects from their floor factor calculations.

When this was brought to the attention of the relevant officials, they openly admitted they are not able to check the developer’s claims and rely on the goodwill and honesty of the professionals involved.

Since we identified this discrepancy on the plans, the City no longer allows our PAIA applications to get us copies of developers’ plans to check for errors, so we are unable to scrutinise whether this “stringent system” is functioning.

Moreover, developments appear almost always to reviewed in isolation rather than in the context of the whole environment.

When asked at a roadshow about how the City’s own policies are taken into account in such decisions, officials openly noted that there is a wide degree of discretion open to how officials interpret policies.

In our experience, the interpretation almost always favours developers over communities seeking to have a say in development within their localities.

It is time the City took citizen participation seriously rather than pay lip service. Leslie London Observatory Civic Association