Remedial work has commenced on the River Club site in Observatory, Cape Town. This follows the rehabilitation work that commenced last month on the riverine areas surrounding the property in order to carry out work approved in the environmental and municipal planning authorisations, and to mitigate any public health, environment and safety risks in the current rainy season.
Rehabilitation of the riverine corridor will include re-naturalising a 25 to 40 metre eco-corridor extending along the Liesbeek River and merging with the confluence of the Black River.
The workforce will also be remobilised to start critical remedial and protective work on the partially constructed building in order to prevent structural and related degradation and to ensure any prior work is protected from weather elements. Critically, this will mean some workers will be able to start earning an income again, after 750 workers were sent home when the interdict to stop construction on the site came into effect on 18 March 2022.
Increased activity on the site will also help deter potential invasions by criminal or anti-social elements. This has become a real risk following the recent attempt on Friday, 10th of June by a group of some 70 people to unlawfully gain access to the project site.
The work on the River Club property will continue lawfully and pending determination of LLPT’s leave to appeal application, which is pending before the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), and any appeal that may or will follow. The LLPT maintains that it is in the interests of justice and the people of Cape Town for the development to go ahead. The project will create 6000 direct and 19 000 indirect jobs; afford the Cape Peninsula Khoi a meaningful opportunity to memorialise and celebrate their cultural heritage associated with the much broader area, including the establishment of a First Nation Heritage, Cultural and Media Centre; provide developer subsidised inclusionary housing; major road upgrades; as well as safe and accessible green parks and gardens all of which will be open and freely accessible to the public.
