The executive committee of the Cape Town unicity trashed five years of negotiations and consultants’ reports costing R221 500 when it decided recently to scrap a plan to rejuvenate the historic, but degraded, Company’s Garden in tandem with the Cape Town Partnership.
It now appears that pressure from the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) could be behind the exco decision to throw out the plans. This is said to be related to tension between the African National Congress and trade unions.
The council intends managing the Company’s Garden itself, but it has not done well up to now.
The historic garden in the heart of the city was established in 1652 on the instructions of the Dutch East India Company to provide fruit and vegetables for ships on the way to its colonial outpost in Batavia.
Over the years it has become the setting for some of Cape Town’s most important public buildings, including Parliament, the national museum, library and art gallery.
Once described as the most valuable urban landscape in South Africa, it has been badly neglected. Piles of rubbish, broken garden seats, weeds and overgrown shrubberies would deter visitors even if there were not a good chance of being mugged.
The partnership, in which the council and business have equal shares, has a mandate to promote, manage and develop the central city. It claims success in curbing crime and encouraging investment.
The partnership saw the run-down state of the garden as a gap in its urban renewal programme. After months of negotiations, it formulated a business plan based on a report by environmental planning specialists OVP and Associates and approved by council.
The plan proposed improved restaurants, coffee shops, art and jazz shows and greatly increased security. It also proposed private-sector involvement in the horticultural care of the garden, including sponsorship — a suggestion that had unintended consequences in that it drew fire from trade unionists.
Involving the partnership in managing the garden would have amounted to privatisation, said AndrÃ