April 24, 2006
By Neil Fraser
TWO weeks ago, I mentioned the evident agreement to establish a joint local-provincial government group to re-examine the provincial government plans to destroy the heart of the city (Citichat, 10 April).
It springs from the withdrawal of the City council's appeal against the project (imagine having to appeal against details of a project in the very city that you are elected to manage), clearly after political pressure from the next level of government had been exerted. According to the City's press release, an agreement was reached between the two levels of government to seek ways "to minimise challenges of environment and heritage in the area earmarked for the provincial government precinct in the inner city".
The press release states that the City has an "alternative plan" that will provide "a larger square with the demolition of only two buildings". Interesting. My grapevine tells me that the former mayor of Mogale City has been appointed to chair the group as well as to head up the overall project.
So what happens if a compromise is reached? Will it be subject to new heritage and environmental impact studies and appeals? Will the South African Heritage Resources Agency (Sahra) have to reconsider its earlier decision against which a number of appeals, other than that from the Joburg council, have been lodged (and should have been heard last week). It would be a great plot for a soap opera if it wasn't so unbelievably bizarre.
In the meantime, another potential inner city heritage drama is also unfolding, this time related to Newtown.
Newtown
As part of the ongoing refurbishment of Newtown, the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) has been considering the development of a number of council-owned properties. These include the area known as Central Place and the site known as the Majestic. The former is the undeveloped portion of the site between Miriam Makeba Street to the east and Henry Nxumalo Street to the west, President to the south and Jeppe to the north – it is roughly behind the row of historic single and double storey buildings that front on to Mary Fitzgerald Square, which include the Worker's Library and Museum and the recently developed 1 Central Place, home to the Gauteng Tourism Authority.
The latter, the Majestic, is the site opposite Gramadoelas, the great restaurant at the east end of Museum Africa next to the Market Theatre. The JDA called for and received proposals for the development of the sites last year.
In terms of heritage legislation, the JDA advised Sahra that it wished to develop the sites and Sahra advised the JDA in turn that it intended to declare the whole of Newtown a "provisional heritage site". This declaration would mean that a heritage impact assessment (HIA) should be carried out before any development could be started and that the public should be allowed to comment on the proposed developments.
A public consultation process was then duly carried out to inform the public and, what are quaintly called "Interested and Affected Parties", about the proposals and the HIA. Advertisements drawing attention to the process, meetings and various procedures required in terms of the process were also carried out.
The first phase of the HIA was completed and I believe that a full copy will be available for viewing in the Johannesburg Public Library. It is a long and comprehensive document that is worth studying and one cannot do justice to it in a newsletter such as this. But there are a few quotes that I feel are particularly useful. For instance, the following statement really simply sets out what heritage preservation is all about:
"Where structures have not been altered beyond recognition they are significant as receptacles of history. Without the tangible evidence that structures provide of what took place in the past, other aspects of cultural value, namely the history associated with them, is greatly diminished and even totally expunged.
"Old buildings provide tangible evidence of the layers of history. They are symbols by means of which it is possible to recall past memories. Therefore they may not have to comply with architectural principles of beauty, symmetry et cetera. to still be significant buildings. This is not to say that buildings that warrant conservation are all lacking in such qualities but merely to suggest that structures may be significant because they help to make history and social values more apparent and accessible."
Electrical Precinct
This first phase of the HIA focuses on the Majestic site and the area known as Central Place, which I previously described, but the area was extended eastwards to Ntemi Piliso Street so as to include Turbine Hall because it and the South Boiler House are considered an integral part of what has been identified through research carried out by historians Sue Krige and Marj Brown as the "Electrical Precinct".
The HIA includes this research under the title, A history of the Newtown Electrical Precinct, which makes for fascinating reading, as you will see from the following short extract, slightly edited:
"The Johannesburg Sanitary Board, which functioned as the town's first local authority, required hotels and public houses to have lighting outside their premises. In 1888, two years after the discovery of gold, the government of the Transvaal Republic granted a concession for 50 years – October 1888 to October 1938 – to a company called Dawson and Hamilton 'for the making and delivery of gas for lighting, heating and motive power within Johannesburg, Witwatersrand'.
"A site of eight acres was set out bounded by President Street (south), Melville Street – later West Street (east), Kerk Street (north) and Wolhuter Street (west). However, Kerk Street did not yet formally extend into Newtown.
"By 1892, the Johannesburg Lighting Company had taken over the site and installed two gas-powered engines to drive DC electrical generators for street arc lighting. A steam engine was installed in 1893. Other sets of a similar nature were added until 1899. By 1895, the Johannesburg Lighting Company was in such dire financial straits that it agreed to dispose of its assets to the 'Sanitary Board', which was in effect the local authority until 1897, when Johannesburg received its own stadsraad (town council).
"The ZAR government did not encourage infrastructural or industrial development in Johannesburg, which meant that, by the time the Anglo-Boer War broke out in 1899, Johannesburg was seriously behind Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban in the production of electricity. The existing power station was not able to meet the demand for power, particularly after the Anglo-Boer War.
"The push for a new municipal power station, adjoining existing installations at President Street, was a response to a particular aspect of the post-war reconstruction policies of Lord Milner. They included the development of an efficient transport infrastructure, with an electric tramway system. Horse drawn trams had been in operation since 1891, but now electric trams were considered, along the lines of those already used in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth at the time.
"In 1906 the Johannesburg Light and Power Company ran a small DC plant from steam raised from burning refuse at the Burghersdorp Destructor/ Incinerator. Evidently it was not a great success as the plant was moved to the second President Street Power Station in 1908."
History
The research contains much more, with particularly interesting insight into the various buildings that are still standing and their unique significance in terms of a whole variety of aspects. We have a really fascinating history. Just look at these conclusions that are developed from the research:
"The Electrical Precinct as a whole tells the story of the extraordinary expansion of Johannesburg, a global city, and central to this growth, the role played by the provision of power.
"It is a microcosm of the issue of the powers of local authorities versus provincial and national government in the union of South Africa. Here it also illustrates the complex relationship between private entrepreneurs and the state at all levels, in the first half of the twentieth century.
"It is a microcosm of the phases of uneven and volatile industrialisation based on the industries which originally served the gold mines. It contains elements, parallels and examples of the global technological drive to harness electricity for industrial development.
"It is a microcosm of the social relations emerging in the context of racial segregation, urbanisation and industrialisation, including those between workers and employers. It tells something of the impact of electrification on social and labour relations.
"What differentiates the Electrical Precinct (Central Place) from, for example, the Museum Africa precinct and indeed the greatest part of Newtown, is the explicit memory it affords, through the juxtaposition of places where people lived according to a stratified social order and where they worked, performing industrial functions."
In regard to Central Place and under the heading, The evaluation of the impact of the development on heritage resources relative to the sustainable social and economic benefits to be derived from the development, the HIA states:
"The impact of the development on heritage resources in and around Central Place is expected to be favourable because the emphasis is on showing each heritage building in the most favourable light possible, and in a manner that tries to restore a semblance of aesthetic unity and purpose to an apparently disparate collection of buildings which once existed as part of a working organic whole.
"The new proposed buildings are intended to be infills that help to complete, not to detract from the picture, but that are economically viable and help to make Central Place sustainable. The old and new buildings together provide work and social venues, the success of which will encourage and sustain economic, social and cultural developments elsewhere in Newtown and the inner city."
Reaction
Not everyone may agree with that statement, but what will be interesting will be to see what Sahra's reaction will be. You will remember that it completely ignored not only the HIA report on the provincial government proposals ("The proposed destruction of this – ie the second Rand Water Board Building – and the other eight buildings constitutes potentially irreversible impacts and it would consequently be impossible to mitigate the loss of these buildings as non-renewable heritage resources"), but also the assessment by three non-Joburg based experts ("The assessors found that neither the need for more space, nor the attempt to provide a new symbol justifies the demolitions of the buildings, as the design proposal fails to successfully achieve these two aims").
So, it will be particularly interesting to hear Sahra's reaction to the HIA regarding the proposed Newtown developments in light of the agency's decision on the provincial government precinct. Consistency? I very much doubt it, but watch this space.
Regards, Neil
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