Every morning she would walk down the mountain and swim at its base.
But one morning, tragedy struck. The princess was kidnapped by Portuguese sailors, the first to ever round Cape Point.
Her tears created the smallest and uppermost vlei in the necklace of wetlands, known ever since as Princess Vlei.
Hennie van Wyk, chief of the Khoisan Gorachouqua House, who tells the story, says due to the vlei’s historical value, it should be put on the South African Heritage List.
But as Joni Mitchell prophetically sang in the iconic 1960s song, They've paved Paradise to put up a parking lot - Princess Vlei, a source of scarce recreational space for residents of nearby poor and working class suburbs, remains in danger of being turned into yet another faceless brick and glass development.
Although initial attempts, put in motion in 1998 by Insight Property Developers when they bid to purchase the land from the City of Cape Town in order to build a 9,090sqm shopping mall and 100sqm taxi rank on the green open area surrounding Princess Vlei, were opposed by the public, a new round of public participation is soon to get underway.
Unusually, opposition from the public has come not only from the usual suspects representing middle class environmentally conscious groups, but also from residents of the nearby poverty-stricken suburbs of Lavender Hill, Vrygrond and parts of Grassy Park, who use the space for relaxing weekend activities, as well as for religious ceremonies, like baptisms.
Mayor Dan Plato, who visited the area earlier in October last year, told protestors who handed him a memorandum objecting to the development that the vlei area was important from a cultural and historical point of view.
A month later the proposed development was put on hold after the City applied to the provincial department of Environmental Affairs and Land Development on November 11, for an extension of the record of decision, on behalf of the developers, Insight Property Developers.
Environmental Affairs and Development Planning MEC Anton Bredell then requested the City appoint a consultant to conduct a new round of public participation, the results of which would influence whether or not the extension would be granted.
Now, five months later, the City says it is in the process of appointing a consultant to undertake the public participation process.
“The City is in the process of appointing an Environmental Assessment Practitioner to undertake the Public Participation Process requested by the minister in order for them to make a decision on the City's application to extend the expiry date of the Record of Decision...The appointment of the Practitioner is imminent,” said Osman Asmal, director of City Environmental Resource Management last week.
Asmal commented that all relevant issues of environmental and historical significance of the area “would be addressed as part of the (public participation) process” and that it “is working closely with interested and affected parties to conserve the site”.
But opposition groups doubt whether the developers will succeed in purchasing the land from the City after the coming round of public participation, due to heightened public awareness.
“I think the City won’t get it right to build there because the people have spoken. There is (also) more transparency now,” said Kelvin Cochrane, director of the Cape Flats Wetlands Forum, a civic group opposing the development.
Cochrane is currently heading a project which is aimed at restoring the Princess Vlei area. The project known as “Dressing the Princess” was initiated in October 2008 by the Cape Flats Wetlands Forum in partnership with City Parks, the Biodiversity Management Branch of the City and the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). Since the project started, 100 trees and 4,000 fynbos plants have been planted there.
Cochrane has ambitious plans for Princess Vlei and hopes that it could be the next Kirstenbosch of the Cape Flats. “We hope to build an environmental centre there as well as a sunset concert park and an open air theatre like Kirstenbosch,” said Cochrane.
“We need more Kirstenboschs all over (the Cape Flats). We are correcting the imbalances (of the past) and we are holding the City accountable,” he added.
People are now a lot more informed (about the environmental and historical significance of the area),” said Graeme Noble, Secretary of the Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance.
He said the “original vegetation” of the area, known as Cape Flats fynbos, is the “most critically threatened vegetation type in South Africa” and that should the land be rehabilitated, it would “recover”.
Those supporting the development, like ward councillor Jan Burger, have argued that development of a mall would be good for the community who would have a shopping centre close by, but Cochrane argues that the “place is run down not because of the people but because of the City”, which “never had a vision” for the area, and which it has “neglected” over the years. – Fadela Slamdien, West Cape News
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