Don't Bring the Big City with You

As more and more people move to the Garden Route and it grows to accommodate them, we are losing the open spaces and the beauty, the slowness of life that encourages the enjoyment of what this area offers naturally. 

What we have lost, and are still losing, on Thesen Islands reflects what is happening beyond the gate.  

➤The Encroachment into Open Space 

Boating down the waterways after many years, I was struck by how boats, canoes, paddles, rubber toys, jetties and floating jetties, boat hoists and walkways, were all crowding into the waterway. 

The year long plus fight a few years ago (2018/2019/2020 blog archive) against the increase in bulk might have been won, but the subverting of the Design Guidelines continued with the insidious allowance of more and bigger decks, jetties and boats on what is actually "common property". It has made the narrower waterways feel more Asian floating village than waterway. 

That pools, yes pools, are allowed 500mm from the gabions is peak crowding of the waterway.  

The one boundary, the boundary that allowed everyone to enjoy the view of the waterway, the one that you would think would be sacrosanct has been breached. Now is it more “look at my neighbour’s toys", than look at the ripple of the water.   

Shoehorn development, squeezing as much sellable or rentable space in as possible, is what happens all over Knysna. 

Blocks of shoebox sized 😉, cheaply built flats in place of 2 or 3 houses, a cheap mall. Another one on its way up across the road, all with that "must have" of Knysna redevelopment, insufficient and inadequate parking.  

I kept a letter to the Cape Times years ago from Christopher Bisset of Rondebosch about the new Montclare Place shopping centre. I kept it for this, his last paragraph: “Every time you drive down the ridiculously steep, narrow ramp and stoop your head in the horribly cramped parking lots, you give your blessing to an architecture that exists only to squeeze profit from every inch of available space.”   Sounds familiar, right?     

➤ Value the Open Space 

The constancy of the HOA eyeing the open space of our Parkland as wasted space. Either an opportunity to make money, cutting it up to sell plots or use it for cellphone towers, or the latest, to build a Padel court(s) using a special levy, meaning we dig into our pockets. They haven't said where they want it, but where but our Parkland?  It reminds me of when, in 2014, I heard in a coffee shop about the well advanced plans to sell off stands in the Parkland. 

28 November 2014

I walk at Steenbok Park on Leisure Island. A few weeks ago, when I was walking there, I thought “In all the years I have been getting their "Friends" newsletters, I have never read of a scheme by LIRA’s Board to build on, cut up, sell off parts or their park!”  

In the 20 years I have lived on Thesen Islands, the Parkland has been under attack by the HOA many times.  Read about the 2014 plan to sell stands here      

➤ Care for Nature

Looking at the original sales brochure for Thesen Islands, I read that “11 hectare Parkland and Bird Reserve is a magnet for the rich bird like of the Islands.”

And of the “Many detailed environmental studies…used in the masterplanning to ensure that the Islands will exist in harmony with the Knysna Estuary environment. Bird plant and wildlife specialists are helping plan suitable habitat…in the waterways, the parkland area and Bird Reserve.”

Many of us were attracted to Thesen Islands because of these features. We enjoy the natural open spaces, the ponds and the birds, the long views. Like everything, it needs to be maintained. But the Board of the HOA, under the guise of letting nature take its course, take a different view.

The Board decision is that the ponds and surrounding vegetation should be managed going forward according to the natural rains and seasons. 4 July 2024

So what does it mean? No effort to get water into them.  Abandoned ponds, framed as letting nature take care of itself.  The premise that ponds can be taken care of by nature is absurd. The big May rains putting lot of water into them, notwithstanding. See graph below. 

The ponds were planned and made by man. Nature had nothing to do with them so nature is not equipped to take care of them. Using the HOA’s logic, you could throw your old refrigerator in the lagoon, telling your astonished neighbour and HOA that you are letting nature take care of it! 

Or look at it this way. Would it make sense if the HOA said that the golf greens, like the ponds "should be managed going forward according to the natural rains and seasons", and never watered them? 

But it gets worse. A few years ago, a rushed vanity project of the board just before an AGM cost R1.5 million to gussy up the top 3 ponds made them completely reliant on Municipal water (ignoring a history of restrictions). The pond levels and surrounds were changed. So today there is no, or little runoff, from the surrounding area into the ponds as originally designed. If we had done nothing, we'd saved R1.5 million, and the ponds would arguably be in better shape.

All the while the HOA downplays the amount of rain we receive. We're in “a climate with unpredictable rainfall” (Where is rainfall predictable? you may ask) with “continued low rainfall” followed up with “The current rainfall is now between the 5 and 20 year averages so we need to accept this as a baseline.” (Last 2, not true for 2023) 30 January 24.

In 2023, Leisure Island received 960mm of rain, far exceeding the 10-year average of 667mm, as well as the 20-year average of 759mm.  2023 Rainfall - Knysna-Plett Herald

"Continued low rainfall" says the HOA, not so says Steenbok Park!

Then, without providing their analysis, they say “it has been determined that there is insufficient rain to fill and keep the ponds full from harvesting roof top water.”  20 March 2024.

Does this justify not harvesting any rainwater for the ponds? 

And 4 July 2024: “It has been it has been determined that neither the use of the borehole nor an RO plant will be either environmentally friendly or financially viable to fill the ponds. 

The borehole (ruled out years ago*) and the RO plant (never a serious consideration) are put in there to make doing nothing sound better.      *Another waste of our money, about R200,000. The board at that time decided not to consult with the South Coast expert who said, straight off, they would not find good water! Read more

Yes, harvested rainfall may not be enough to fill the ponds, but it well could be enough to keep some water, and the water birds, in them. 

The best runoff is coming from the drains that were put in from the road taking the water into the southern pond. Who thought of that? I did in 2019. Does it fill the pond? No. it does not. But it helps. 

I fail to understand the reasoning that the least expensive option – rainwater harvesting - to get some water into the ponds is discarded as it won’t completely solve the problem!   

In an email (30 Nov 2023) to the HOA urging water harvesting, I estimated that the Club House has about 600 sq m of roof. In 2023 with 960mm of rain and the accepted 1 sq m of roof receiving 1mm of rain delivers 1 litre of water, 576,000 litres of water could have been harvested from here alone. My email

Rainfall graph above from "Friends of Steenbok Park", June 2024. 

➤ Enjoy the Slowness

Knysna is slow. Don’t try to speed it up. You won’t be able and you’ll just get uptight. When the traffic on the N2 is moving at the speed limit, be it 80 or 100 km/h, and there is a long line of cars going at that speed, don’t tailgate the car in front of you to intimidate him/her to pull over. Think: The roads are dangerous primarily because people drive too fast. Or cannot think. 

When you are driving on Thesen Islands and the car in from of you is going at 25 km/h even though the speed limit is 30 km/h, don’t tailgate.  And, this is not something you do not know - there are kids, some very small in the roads, riding out of blind intersections, coming out of everywhere. Slow down for their sake, at least!

You moved to Knysna for the lifestyle, remember. It’s slow. Enjoy it.  

And if Thesen Islands is your home, get involved. Write to the HOA about stuff you like and don't like, make suggestions. Speak up. Often, you can influence decisions that have profound impact on our way of life here. 

This blog is a lot of my opinions, some people agree with them, some people, often HOA trustees, don't. But I say this: In 2014, I sounded the alarm about the plan to cut up and sell off the Parkland and members rallied against it, forcing the trustees to can the idea. In 2018, I took up the fight against the increase in house sizes and while it was ugly, with many blog posts, that too was defeated by clear thinking members. Thesen Islands would look and feel a lot different if both those plans, pushed by HOA trustees, had won.

 

“Don’t bring the big city with you” comes from what a friend in the township was told by a neighbour after he got the luck of an RDP house in what is now called Millionaire’s View in Greenfields. It is a row of houses on the top of the hill, looking over the lagoon. Most of the houses are now much grander than what they started out as. My friend has cows. When he was moving in, his neighbour said to him, “Please, Tata, don’t bring the farm with you!”