Paving paradise

It’s a story often told along the shores of Cape Town’s Princess Vlei: how, 500 years ago, the Portuguese abducted a Khoi princess here who was never seen again.

The ‘Princess”, as the famous wetland on the Cape Flats is affectionately known among locals, is a much-loved public area where families picnic, new church members are baptised and people sunbathe on ”Claremont beach” or enjoy a quick make-out session while the sun sets behind the Constantia Mountains.

Now a developer’s plans to build a 9 000m2 shopping centre on its shores has enraged the community. ”The Princess was raped and abducted 500 years ago,” says Kelvin Cochrane, fondling one of the ericas he has planted in the wetland. ”And now they want to violate her all over again.”

The developer, Neville Thornton of Insight Property Developers, says the shopping centre has been through the mill at both city and provincial levels and an investigation has shown that it will bring value to a community that has no shopping facilities. It is mainly criminals who frequent the ‘badly degraded” vlei, Thornton says.

A shopping centre will ‘securitise” the area and bring out its true value. It is true that the Princess is not looking her best, but Cochrane is trying to ‘dress” her with ericas, restios and proteas to show off her true beauty.

He believes that with proper care she can become the Kirstenbosch of the Cape Flats. ‘Many kids around here have never been to the botanical gardens,” he says. ‘But we have this beautiful piece of heritage with this amazing story right in our backyard. If we can’t save the Princess, how can we teach our children to respect the environment?”

On July 18 this year, Cochrane arranged a ‘petition day” that gathered more than 1 500 signatures of locals opposed to the development. Of the 215 people living adjacent to the vlei, 213 signed their names.

Cochrane says he has rallied about 120 civic organisations and environmental groups into a movement to ‘save the Cape Flats’ green fields”.

The Sassmeer community and most local ratepayers’ associations threw their weight behind the campaign, asking how the Cape Town council and the provincial environmental department could have approved the development in the first place.

Thornton points to a complex environmental impact assessment that has taken almost 12 years. He says that for every person who signed against the shopping centre, he can find a community member who supports the development.

‘We held all the meetings and the city did an intensive investigation because of the perceived environmental impact. And both the province and city approved it,” he says. ‘Both the ANC and DA administrations asked me to go ahead.”

The land still belongs to the city, but it is expected to be sold in a few months after the provincial authorities have finalised the subdivision. Because the land is public, the Western Cape government must approve each stage of the process.

The environmental impact assessment was requested by the city and the provincial environmental department approved it in 2005.

The Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa appealed, saying that public open space such as Princess Vlei should not be rezoned for business, but left in a natural state. The appeal failed.

Ruby Gelderbloem, the city’s director of property management, says that Insight Property Developers approached the city just before 1998 with an ‘unsolicited proposal” to purchase a property on the shores of Princess Vlei for the development of the regional shopping centre. With the assessment approved and rezoning and subdivision almost finalised, the project is set to go ahead.

Local councillor Jan Burger also backs the development, saying that it will bring value and badly needed jobs to the neighbouring communities of Grassy Park, Steenberg, Lotus River and Lavender Hill.

Thornton is adamant that the environment will not be damaged. He says the 30m buffer between the shore and the mall will be landscaped and parking bays will be provided for those who want to enjoy the vlei.

For Cochrane, that is not the issue. ‘You don’t have a mall in Kirstenbosch — it just doesn’t fit,” he says. ‘This is our heritage, our environment. ‘If we don’t fight for it, it will just be another case of ‘they paved paradise to put up a parking lot.”