Emmarentia Park Development Meeting

[wildog_a]

FYI Gautengers... Emmarentia is really under threat! 

 

Hi Everybody<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

As agreed I attended the <?: prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Emmarentia Park development meeting at Marks Park last evening, 26 November 2008.

The meeting was called by:-

GRA ? Greenside Residents Association

ERA ? Emmarentia Residents Association

EDGE ? Environmental & Dog Group of Emmarentia

Joburg City Parks (JCP) were invited and the Curator of the Joburg Botanical Gardens (Emmarentia Park) attended with his legal representative.

Meeting was extremely well attended with 200+ concerned persons attending the meeting including a DA MP (whose great grandmother was Emmarentia Geldenhuys, whose family gave the park to the people of Johannesburg and after who the park is named) and the DA City Councilor for the area Ms Pat Richards. Both have committed their support to fighting the planned developments.

GRA / ERA / EDGE (Users) were represented by two attorneys, and a support team, who are all residents of the area and park users.

Meeting lasted two hours and became very heated and emotional to say the least!

JCP are hell bent on developing the park into a fully fledged Botanical Garden and this the fourth attempted in the since 1991 to do this! The purpose of the proposed fence is to enable them to have more control over access to the larger controlled area and to charge entry into this area. This was denied by JCP but the meeting was told that yesterday the pay booths that have already been built were in operation! The fence will reduce the ?public park? area by approximately 75% and will restrict public usage to a relatively small area just below

Beyers Naude Drive

.

Public participation by JCP has been abysmal and the high handed attitude of the JCP officials? right up to senior level is cause for concern, according to the Users legal team.

Objection forms were handed out for completion and I objected on behalf of mountain bikers by using my official capacity of being a member of Central Gauteng Mountainbike Commission and Rockhoppers Mountainbike Club.

 

There will be a long hard battle ahead to prevent this development and the Users have committed themselves to this fight.

I will keep you posted as to developments and I am sure there will be articles and reports in Caxton and other press.

 

Regards

 

Richard Durrant

 

PLEASE CONSIDER THE ENVIRONMENT BEFORE PRINTING THIS E-MAIL

 

 

[DRIVETRAIN]

 

BASTARDS -Incompetent Morons

 

"DT"

[santacruz rulz]

Thanks Richard for taking this on.  It will be a time consuming and frustrating task but you are always one of the "doers" not "talkers".

 

 

[Pundit]

what support is needed from mtb'ers, clubs etc? do the clubs no about this and are they getting involved to support EDGE etc?

[idrive]

 

BASTARDS -Incompetent Morons

 

"DT"

 

Stupid childish comments like this can undo all the good work done so far.

 

You'll be surprised how many people see website forum stuff so how about engaging the brain cell before putting finger to keyboard.