Neil Fraser
February 10, 2003
The Inner City Advisory Committee held its first meeting of 2003 on Wednesday and the first item on the agenda was to obtain approval for the re-development of the Drill Hall. Approval obtained!
The report still has to go through a number of other committees and, of course, the Mayoral Committee and Council, but the project is at least out of the starting blocks. Which I guess is quite an achievement given that the fire that finally sparked (sorry!) the re-development project occurred less than a year ago as reported in Citichat 14 of 12th April 2002.
Tragically the fire also claimed five lives and was a repeat of a previous fire a year earlier when nine had died.
I wrote the following about the Drill Hall in an earlier Citichat (No. 41 of 19 October 2001): "The building is owned by the State which has neglected it to the stage that it is totally overrun by squatters, a haven for gangs and a centre of criminal activity. It is a cess-pit which constitutes a major potential health hazard, a number of fires have resulted in damage and it has been condemned as structurally unsound. Yet the State does nothing!"
Hardly the way that a Government should be dealing with a building with so rich a history in the development of the city. Citichat 14 of 12th April 2002 scratched at its history describing the Drill Hall as "a building that encapsulates the full range of the city’s chequered history. Built in 1904 as the headquarters for the Transvaal Volunteers during the city’s colonial period, it remained in military hands from Union in 1910 right through to 1985. The building featured prominently during the strikes in 1922 when it headquartered the troops used to quell the riots. It was identified with the apartheid regime due to its use in 1957 at the start of the Treason Trial which was later relocated to Pretoria 'for security reasons'."
In Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela writes: "It was a great barn of a building, with a corrugated iron roof, and considered the only public building large enough to support a trial of so many accused."
Gerard-Mark van der Waal in his book, From Mining Camp to Metropolis describes the building design as somewhat "removed from the Beaux Arts mode".
I wasn't able to find a great deal of detail on the building's background but Sue Krige, as part of the re-development team, has the responsibility for researching its history. There is a lot of speculation as to why the Drill Hall had been built on this particular site as well as why it had been built on the 'native gaol' foundations and whether this meant that this previous gaol on the site pre-dated the 'native gaol' at the Fort.
I'm sure that Sue will be able to add to the richness of the city's heritage by providing more information about the building whose life spans 99 of the city's 117 year history.
So what's proposed that will enable the Drill Hall to once again take its place back in the mainstream of active life in the city?
The report describes the main goal of the project as the "restoring and development of Drill Hall as a place of historical significance and as a public open space with opportunities for recreation. The intention is for the site to form part of the historical and cultural tourism trail of the inner city."
Thus the development seeks to commemorate the Treason Trial, provide new public open space and recreational facilities; introduce new uses that will stabilise the area and lead to regeneration and promote investment in the area by addressing major problems associated with the building over the past few years.
This latter aspect can only be good news for the adjacent owners, most, if not all of whom have been tearing their hair out for years at the hugely negative impact on the area brought about through the illegal occupation of the building. Even the police at one stage unofficially regarded the building as a 'no-go' area.
The southern side of the building will be demolished and the space it covers will, together with the area occupied by the main hall - destroyed in the fire - be developed into an open square. That in itself is great news as we badly need breathing spaces in the city. Through the closure of Quartz Street between Plein and De Villiers, this open space will be enlarged further.
Part of the western building will be retained whilst the northern building is to be retained in its entirety and refurbished. This will be used to house the Rand Light Infantry and the National Reserve Forces Council. The RLI currently occupies space in the Fort but needs to be rehoused due to the development of Constitution Hill.
The R10-million project will start with demolitions next month, construction starts a month later and the project is scheduled for completion in September 2003.
The Drill Hall is in a 'gritty' part of the city and its neglect over the past decade has added not inconsiderably to the general degeneration in the area. However during the past few years there has been a great deal of activity in the area – the conversion of the Landdrost Hotel into apartments, a massive new taxi ranking facility and, more recently, a large retail project – so it is hoped that this re-development project will complement the commercial activities by providing a safe and pleasant lung which will encapsulate in some way the rich history of the site and the city.
Fortunately its ownership is to be transferred from a disinterested national government department to a city council that is progressively showing more and more determination to deal with unpleasant but necessary interventions in this period of city revitalisation. What will of course be absolutely critical is the management of the development when it is completed or it will degenerate again into the carbuncle that it has been on the city fabric this past decade.
Whilst on the council, I hear from the grapevine that the Executive Mayor, Amos Masondo, will be signing a twinning city arrangement with his New York counterpart Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York on Sunday. In the 'old days' the city had numerous sister city arrangements with a diversity of cities around the globe. These arrangements seemed to be nothing more than an excuse for the respective mayors to lunch with each other once a year!
The new approach is far more pragmatic, based as it is on meaningful co-operation and, to my knowledge, we now have only one such arrangement, that with Birmingham. This has led to some important exchanges, initiatives and support. So a similar arrangement with no less a city than the Big Apple could be truly significant. I hope the mayoral group finds some time to see the great work that has been accomplished by the New York business improvement districts.
I had the privilege this week to be invited to lunch with Lael Bethlehem, the Director of the Council’s Economic Planning Unit and Graeme Reid, CEO of the JDA, to brief Sir Anthony O’Reilly on the city. No, I’m not name dropping - he is a great supporter of Johannesburg and has a clear vision for its potential. 'Tony' first visited Johannesburg with the touring British Lions in the late-1950s so he has a first-hand knowledge of the city spanning nearly five decades. A man of great intellect, humour and Irish charm and clearly a man of discernment when it comes to cities!
