Background
Curro Rivonia and Liliesleaf started to engage in a discussion for Curro to lease the properties above Liliesleaf in 2018. The nature of the discussion was for Curro to develop the vacant property (which had 4 derelict houses on them) into a recreational area for the school – due to the limited land that Curro has.
Formal negotiations commenced with the newly constituted Rivonia Woods Neighbourhood Association towards the end of 2019 when the agreement between Liliesleaf and Curro were being finalised.
The purpose of this engagement was for the RWNA to secure the rights of the community and to negotiate the best deal for the community at large.
It is a policy of the RWNA to act in a transparent manner at all times and maintain good corporate governance. To this end:
- The residents directly impacted by the development i.e. those living next to the development, were engaged.
- A WhatsApp created specifically for them on 11 November 2019.
- An ad hoc site meeting was held with Curro, the contractor and the affected residents (mentioned above) was held on Weds 13 November 2019 – approx. 12 residents attended this.
- It was agreed at that meeting, that those present, with the exception of 1 or 2 people, were in support of the proposed development.
Curro had provided us with the following timetable:
As of 22 Jan 2019 – the schedule is running behind.
Together with a proposed site plan:
Curro wanted to (and has commenced the clearing of the site). At the same time, the RWNA and Curro continued with the process of drafting an agreement, the 3rd iteration of what is now being distributed to the community-at-large for commentary.
The reason this approach was taken i.e. firstly engaging with the affected residents and the the larger community was to carefully consider those most impacted by the development.
We are not at this point going to provide a summary of the agreement as we would like each and every resident to read this draft Memorandum of Understanding – then to send commentary via email to community@rivoniawoods.co.za, after which we will consolidate and publish those comments.
We would like to close off the commentary on Weds 29 January 2019 and to revert back to Curro with final concerns/additions in the following week, leading to the final agreement.
