Maryanne Simmons
Secondly, the feasibility study done on this project ignores the community that has lived in this area for at least 80 years, and blithely ignores the infrastructure that has been developed in this area. Not one word in the feasibility report mentions a Jewish community, or Jewish schools or Jewish shuls; this omission appears to be blatantly anti-Semitic.
Communities have a right in terms of the Constitution to have a determining say in the development of their area. The city bylaws are ignored with impunity in this area in the present situation.
Our levels of environmental pollution, air quality in winter and waste control and rat population control are all abysmal for a world class city.
The traffic flow in and around Louis Botha Avenue and Hathorn Street is already pretty awful during rush hour. Escalate this by the allowed development and you are looking at a numerical disaster.
The policing in the area by SAPS does not even begin to cope with the problem of violent crime, which is why private security is a huge business – and still we have a crime rate that is unacceptably high.
The fact that it is now legal to build a nightmare of overpopulated low cost housing four to eight storeys high on 90 per cent of any stand from Hillbrow to Sandton, should be totally unacceptable to any half-sane town planner and politician.
Nowhere in South Africa has this type of high density living been promoted.
The fact that developers are already developing in Orange Grove shows that development is not going to wait for infrastructure, but vice versa.
The DA approved this development with reservations – whatever that means.
