Hout and About

News from Residents’Association of Hout Bay

PO Box 27031, Hout Bay, 7872

rahb@houtbay.org.za www.houtbay.org.za

May 2007

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

We held our eleventh AGM on Monday evening, 21^st May and about 80-100 people braved the wintry weather to attend the meeting. The new committee comprises five members from the previous ExCo, Pierre Steyn, Justin O’Riain, Jim Devlin, Penny Brown and myself, and we were delighted to welcome ten new members viz. Howard Ball, Vanessa Davidson, Paula de Coito, Peter Johnson, Christa le Roux, Reinhard Marx, Mickey Orrey, Rob Patterson, Jill Patterson and Pam Woolley.

Guest Speaker: Cllr Dan Plato

The guest speaker, Councillor Dan Plato, is on the Mayor’s Executive Committee with the portfolio for Housing. Councillor Plato delivered a very interesting down-to-earth address on the issue ‘The development of Imizamo Yethu’ pointing out that IY is only one of over 200 informal settlements that the City has to deal with, and implied that certain rather vocal politicians seemed to expect that IY should be given preferential treatment. He said that there is just not enough available land in this area to formally accommodate all the people currently living in IY. We understood that if the more recent IY residents are not relocated soon, it would be difficult for the City to go ahead with the formal development of IY, and so informal settlements in other areas would be likely to benefit ahead of IY as many are more than willing to move to suitable land elsewhere.

Councillor Plato pointed out that relocation is not unusual as it is happening on a daily basis in the greater Cape Town area. He said that he would be attending the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) meeting the following evening. RAHB has been involved in the IJR facilitated community consultations to try and find common ground amongst various community representatives on how to go forward with the development of IY. The Mayor has given the grouping until 1^st June to reach a consensus on a framework to guide the process of producing a suitable proposal to the City Council for the development of this area. For various reasons this is not an easy nor comfortable process, but we are participating in the hope that a reasonably sensible way forward can be found.

Chairperson’s Address

What follows is an abridged version of my Annual Report. First let me remind you about our Vision and Mission statements, and then address how we try to meet these mandates. Our Vision is to inform, encourage and activate the community of Hout Bay for the common good; and, our Mission Statement is to generate public awareness in order to harness the energy of the community for action, and, to provide community-based information to decision-makers for the betterment of Hout Bay.

As a Community-Based Organization (CBO), we have no real decision-making powers, but we use public participation opportunities to influence local and provincial decision-makers to promote the sustainable development and conservation of what makes Hout Bay special.

Health: Justin O’Riain spearheaded the initiative dealing with the extraordinarily high levels of sewage pollution, arising from Imizamo Yethu urban run-off and contaminating the Disa River, the Estuary and Beach, and, thereby, severely compromising the health of the entire community. Dr O’Riain got Dr Jo Barnes, public health expert from Stellenbosch University, to investigate and document the problem so that we could warn the public and get the City to take remedial action. While some action was taken by the City, the root causes have yet to be dealt with properly. Dr Mickey Orrey will take on the health portfolio.

Safety and Security: Thanks to Brad Geyser for his contributions over the past year. He is standing down this year, and will be replaced by Rob Paterson and Vanessa Davidson. Rob is no stranger as he is currently chairing the Community Policing Forum (CPF) and is Neighbourhood Watch (NW) Executive Officer so will keep us on the pulse of security matters!

Currently the CPF is busy on a number of fronts including making the proposed Community Court a reality – this is a very worthwhile project as it would dramatically reduce wasted man-hours involving SAPS having to attend daily court in Wynberg for example. Hopefully sentences laid down will enable community service to be carried out in and around Hout Bay cleaning up graffiti, weed/brush clearance, general litter pick up etc. The Neighbourhood Watch has made a significant difference to crime in Hout Bay with many RAHB members are doing regular duties. More people are needed to make sure that this fine effort is sustained, so please encourage others to ‘do their bit’!

Property Evaluations: Rates, and especially the possibility of an increase in rates, is often a subject that gets people a bit hot under the collar. The recent property evaluations for 2007-2011 were no exception, as many residents felt that their properties had been over-valued, and they would be penalized by unreasonably high rates. We attended a number of meetings and considered calling for the valuations to be scrapped but were advised that this was not really achievable, so, with other members of the Greater Cape Town Civic Association, we obtained an extension of the deadline for lodging objections and encouraged rate payers to object if their valuations were too high. Fortunately, the rate in the rand was relatively low, so higher valuations usually did not translate into the very high rates feared. Nonetheless, unreasonable valuations must be challenged and pensioners and people on a fixed income (who find it difficult to afford their new rates) should apply for relief. Thanks to Norman Briggs for his contributions here; he moved to Gordon’s Bay in January so Reinhard Marx will take on this portfolio.

Planning and Environment: We put considerable effort into planning and environmental issues as these lay the foundations for the well-being of the community. They include land-use and development, spatial planning, roads, engineering, building and signage regulations, and environmental conservation, and are very relevant to Hout Bay where space is limited and infra-structures (especially roads) are overloaded, unplanned-for densification is increasing, and cumulative effects of ad hoc develop-ment are not officially taken into account.

Environmental matters: It has been a mixed year for the wetlands, river and beach. The lows included: (1) Staggering levels of ecoli found entering the Disa River below Victoria Road mentioned above.  The source of this contamination was direct dumping of human waste into the storm-water system in IY.  This highlighted the drastic health conditions within the settle-ment and the threat to both the inhabitants of IY and also the entire Hout Bay community given that the end point of this effluent was the beach and the bay. (2) Further inappro-priate development along the edge of the wetland: Houses in perfect working order and worth upward of 1.2 million rand were razed to make way for apartment blocks. The immediate impact of this was the foundations intersected the water-table and the buffer zone between the wetland and the urban edge was destroyed. (3) Multiple eruptions of the sewer system due to a faulty sensor at the sewage pump station on Princess Street polluting the wetlands and river (adding to the pollution from IY). This resulted in a massive walkout of crabs as the waters became anoxic and inhospitable to life.

The highs, on the other hand, included: (1) Completion of a gabion weir to regulate the flow from the wetland to the river and thus maintain the wetland water levels at a higher level throughout the winter. (2) Completion of the first phase of the wetland which involved the removal of aliens and old land fill, the creation of open water ponds and the planting of some 2000 indigenous plants.  After the first week, 10 water-bird species had inaugurated the new habitat! Justin O’Riain will be joined by Paula de Coita in this portfolio. Christa le Roux will be covering parks and recycling and has already contributed in this area.

Roads and signage: You may have noticed that the Valley Road / Victoria Road circle is under construction (a condition of approval of the retirement village under construction); there will be a period when Victoria Road is closed so watch for notices. This brings the number of circles in Hout Bay to five – not bad considering that, at one stage, the Provincial engineers didn’t want any - now they are happy with the way they work, and so are we! Peter Johnson is taking on the roads portfolio. We have had considerable success with dealing with illegal signage thanks to Norman Briggs and we are pleased that Howard Ball has agreed to take over this portfolio.

Landuse: Input on rezoning and subdivision applications continue (by Penny Brown, Len Swimmer and others) and is reported on in each Hout and About.

We are encouraged by the City’s fairly recent re-introduction of Sub-Councils as we hope it will ‘bring government closer to the people’. As a case in point, the last Sub-Council meeting dealt with an application to subdivide a small property off Victoria Avenue – it had been supported by the municipal planners and passed by the City’s SPELUM committee, in spite of it contravening the minimum erf size of 650 sq.m for Hout Bay as laid down by the Zoning Scheme – the Residents’ Association, the Heritage Trust and about four neighbouring residents had appealed this decision, and so it was referred to the Sub-Council.

In the greater scheme of things, this proposed subdivision may not, in itself, make a huge difference to the landscape right now, but approval would set a seriously negative precedent for unplanned-for densification that is not sustainable, given the physical limitations in terms of infrastructure and ‘sense of place’. Moreover, under the Land Use Planning Ordinance (LUPO), a subdivision or departure from the Zoning Scheme is obliged to make a positive contribution for the community – this proposal would not do so; but would have a negative impact by setting a precedent with a creeping adverse effect on the long-term social and economic viability of Hout Bay, which requires that the attractive characteristics of Hout Bay be conserved as these are what attract tourists.

The Sub-Council unanimously supported our appeal, and turned down the application. Let us hope that the tide is turning against opportunistic applications.

Administration: Valerie Rossi, our minute taker, is standing down from ExCo but will continue computerizing the planning schedule. Jill Paterson is going to fill the post of secretary and Pam Wooley will help with admin. Jim Devlin has done media work and Pierre Steyn, has served as Deputy Chairperson and webmaster.

Thank you one and all!

Len Swimmer, Chairperson

Association Banking Details: First National Bank, Hout Bay Branch (branch code 204 009), Account name - Residents Association of Hout Bay, Account Number – 5345 1027 173.

Subscriptions may be paid electronically (use your full name as a reference on the payment – to ensure that we correctly credit your membership as this information appears on our Bank Statement

If you prefer, payment can also be dropped into our wooden box at the Library (next to the Hall doors) or posted to our Post Office Box: 27031 Hout Bay, 7872.