This is an open invitation to the people of Durbanville from a concerned ratepayer. I am inviting the residents of Durbanville to come and witness the wholesale destruction of our neighbourhood under the watchful eyes of our City of Cape Town officials – the same city whose logo says: This City works for you.
For years we, the Marais’s and our neighbours, have lived back to back to Dr Butler’s smallholding on the corner of Boland Road and Green Pastures Road. We even signed an agreement with him to ultimately subdivide the property into 16 plots. However, since his demise, his estate has passed on to his children, who have sold to a developer who convinced the City to redevelop the plot into 48 maisonette styled high-density accommodation units.
The neighbourhood rejected the proposal due to higher traffic envisaged on Boland Road, the destruction of the Durbanville character, including the hundreds of trees to be removed.
The destruction that occurred on the neighbouring Compton Place development on Moraea Road is an example of “checks and balances” that disappears like morning mist before the sun.
Even the City’s own environmental management department initially did not support the redevelopment in it’s current design due to the large number of trees required to be cut down. The devastation wrecked at 18 Boland Road gave us an example of what lies ahead for us.
Then miraculously in December 2024 we were informed that all our concerns were addressed and the development has been approved. Even the “green scape ” department is now in agreement with this densification of our environment despite the ratepayers objection. And the developer promptly renamed the property with the non-sensical name “Le Rhu”.
Even the traffic department gave their “approval”, after they did a traffic survey in Florida Street, more than a kilometre away. You can’t argue with such logic.
Now in August the chain saws have started despite no survey document being available which listed the trees earmarked for destruction and despite the City’s own regulations requiring permission to cut 50 to 70 year old trees. Many trees must be 100 years old plus.
This is reminiscent of Durbanville High School cutting down their 80 year old Eucalyptus trees next to the tennis courts to convert it into a parking lot for SUV’s.
So my invitation is for Durbanville residents to visit our area between 16:00 and 18:00 on weekdays and see for yourselves how this City works for you. The traffic is already backed up to Bergsig Dutch Reformed Church, access to this property to be down our street, Moraea Road, to a road to be constructed by the developer. How is that for transferring costs onto a private developer?
Francois J. Marais, Durbanville
