THE proposed temporary parking lot for staff of Netcare St Augustine’s Hospital at Meyrick Bennett Park was given the go-ahead by residents who attended a public meeting on Tuesday evening at Councillor Mmabatho Tembe’s office.
A handful of residents attended the meeting and listened as Garth Kloppenborg from the Parks Department explained the decision to move forward with the proposal.
At an earlier meeting in January, residents had raised concerns about the proposal to establish a temporary parking lot on a section of the park. At the time, contractors took note of the concerns raised and went away to deliberate on the matter before making a final decision. Kloppenborg said he heard back from the contractors in early February and an intermediary had visited him to discuss ideas before a decision could be made.
“The municipality had to look at how we could accommodate this and are happy to assist as we feel the development at the hospital is in the best interest of the community. The request for parking for staff in the park aims to create space for patients’ and visitors’ cars during the construction period, and not on a permanent basis. The department will give the contractors a lease to park their cars there, but only for a temporary time,” he said.
ALSO READ: Back to the drawing board for St Augustine’s Hospital’s parking plans
Responding to the question about the property being left in Trust, Kloppenborg said there were a number of sites that had been left in Trust to the City, including Bulwer Park, and in the case of Meyrick Bennett, the only provision was that the house was to remain available to the university as a place where children could go for counselling. He said the City had the right to decide what happened on the rest of the site.
“The City can’t go there and build something, or make a permanent parking lot. There will be no hard surface laid down at all, and it will not be used for storage of rubble or building material,” he said.
Kloppenborg said the developers had made a commitment to park only 60 cars on the site, and as a result of concerns at the first community meeting about the roots of the trees being damaged by vehicles, he said he would ensure they stuck strictly to that allocation to ensure cars were not packed in close to each other, and are parked away from trees.
“We will try our best to preserve the trees and the park will be properly reinstated afterwards. This will be access controlled parking strictly for hospital staff and part of the condition is that no taxis will be allowed access. There will be signage stating who can park in the area. The building is on schedule so the number of months this lot will be used for might even be less,” he said, adding that Parks had approved this sort of proposal many times before on different sites, and it had worked successfully. He said the spin-off would be security present in the park and a possibility of the park being fenced.
ALSO READ: Glenwood community outraged by plans to rent park for parking lot
Ending the meeting, with the approval of residents present whose only concerns were that the lot would be temporary and the park would be properly reinstated, Councillor Tembe said her only concern was that the park be returned to its current condition.
“I have asked Garth for stringent conditions for reinstatement and I trust he will ensure this is properly done. I am upset by the lack of attendance by the community for this meeting as they had a chance to voice their opinion, but the four residents present today have given the go-ahead,” she said.
Do you want to receive news alerts via WhatsApp? Send us a WhatsApp message (not an sms) with your name and surname to 060 532 5535.
You can also join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have signed up for our news alerts you need to save the Berea Mail WhatsApp number as a contact to your phone, otherwise you will not receive our alerts
