Durban street renaming deadline extended to 25 June

The deadline for submitting street renaming proposals in Durban has been extended to 25 June.

At the same Council meeting, council also approved the Masakhane Committee's recommendation that the street naming policy be amended to replace “consultation with addressees” with “consultation with ward committees”. So, instead of canvassing the opinions of those who live in affected streets, communities will be represented and consulted by their ward committees on the process.

Communities must now submit fresh proposals, even for streets and other infrastructure that was not included in the previously published list. And people can still make comments on the existing list. At the multi-party meeting the Council Speaker James Nxumalo said: “ We want to ensure the process is participatory, something we have tried to ensure from the start. We therefore urge the public to send their comments and proposals”.

The new names need not refer only to political heroes, but can include people who have helped make the lives of eThekwini residents better, through sport, art, music, or any other field of human endeavour.

The extension of the deadline gives people another chance to make their choices.

T he ward committees will analyse the proposed names and make comments, suggestions, criticisms and approvals, as well as presenting alternative proposals. They will also be free to propose any other streets, roads, freeways or buildings to be renamed, as a way of honouring the country’s heritage, and helping to transform the city.\

Their recommendations will then be channelled to the street renaming task team, which will in turn collate all the relevant facts and scrutinise the submissions. These fine-tuned submissions will then be forwarded to the multi-party Masakhane Committee for further deliberations. Thereafter, they will submit a report to the city council’s executive committee.

Proposals must be forwarded to corporategis@durban.gov.za or to the
Municipal Manager, 41
Margaret Mncadi Avenue,
2nd Floor, Rennie House,
Durban, 4001.

Proposals can also be faxed to 031 311 4024.

Durban: Deadline for Proposals on Street Renaming Extended

The eThekwini Municipality’s Masakhane, Grants-in-Aid, Non-Racism, Non-Sexism and Non-Discrimination committee has extended the deadline for submissions of comments on the city’s renaming policy to 23 June 2007.

At a multi-party meeting today, the committee agreed that the public be allowed a further period of 30 days to submit comments and proposals on the renaming of streets and buildings in the city.

The decision comes after weeks of intense public debate after the Council released a list of proposed name changes which came after a month-long consultative process.

Council Speaker James Nxumalo said a bilateral meeting with different political parties yesterday had led to the recommendation to extend the deadline.

“We want to ensure that the process is participatory, something we have tried to ensure from the start, and therefore urge the public to send their comments and proposals which will then be reviewed by our Task Team.”

Councillor Zandile Gumede who chairs the Masakhane Committee said: “In addition to the 181 proposals already received, the public, ward committees and political parties will be given a chance to submit new proposals.”

She said that although the deadline for submissions had been 31 May 2007, this had been extended after it was found that many people had not been aware that they could submit proposals for the renaming and that ward committees had been newly formed at the time and were therefore not sufficiently consulted on the process.

Opposition parties at council welcomed the extension but voiced concern on the procedure of the renamings.

“A lot of the problems had to do with the rushed manner but we support the recommendation to extend the deadline,” said DA caucus leader John Steenhuisen.

Gumede said the ANC was not going to use its majority at council to unfairly disadvantage minority parties.“The process is not being bulldozed. All concerned persons were given opportunities to participate and we are now ensuring that they are being given a further chance to make submissions,” she said.

All comments and new proposals are to be sent to City Manager Michael Sutcliffe.

Durban Street Renaming - City Manager Explains Process

In the light of all the uproar and outcry over the renaming of streets and buildings in Durban, I thought I'd publish this media release from City Manager, Dr Michael Sutcliffe which explains the whole process.

The names that are on the list are PROPOSALS and the reason they are there is because people PROPOSED them, after advertisements in the media inviting them to do so. If those who are now making such a fuss preferred other names, they could have also put in proposals at any time. The Council can only evaluate the list of names submitted by the public. It can't manufacture names.

I was ashamed and saddened this week at the ignorance, arrogance, racism and hatred that I saw displayed, especially in blog posts regarding this process.

I hope Dr Sutcliffe's statement will clear some things up:


STREET RENAMING PROCESS

Dr. Michael Sutcliffe
City Manager: eThekwini

Over the past week we have received significant comment on some proposed changes to the names of streets, facilities and even the municipality. Whilst some of the comment is not even worthy of response it is very important to make sure everyone understands exactly what the process is so that they may properly contribute to what is an important part of building our city.

1. THE PROCESS TO RENAME STREETS HAS BEEN ACCEPTED BY ALL COUNCILLORS IN ETHEKWINI MUNICIPALITY:

In February 2007 eThekwini’s Council agreed on a process to review and finalise names for streets and facilities in our city. In brief, the process required that after inviting comments from the public, the relevant council committee would review names received, make a recommendation to Council after which such names would be finalized. It must be noted that all political parties represented in council accepted this process and through this accepted there would be renaming.

2. THE PROCESS INVITED COMMENTS FROM ALL MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC:

Adverts ran on March 9, 2007 in major local newspapers calling on the public to put forward proposals for the renaming of roads, streets, freeways, municipal buildings, community halls, parks and other public places within the municipal region. Posters were also placed in different Sizakala centres and libraries. The public was encouraged to email, fax, post or even hand-deliver to these centres.

The closing date for submissions was the 30th March 2007, giving the public 21 days to engage with the municipality. And even after this closing date, a few submissions were also considered.

A total of 245 proposals were received. Some were disqualified because they failed to adhere to the set criteria, itself guided by the law. The disqualified included names of living persons, duplicate names and new proposals which did not refer to the old names. Some proposals were made by single individuals and some came from organizations. Some political parties simply forwarded what their branch structures had suggested and indicated that they would only formulate their views collectively when the matters were dealt with by Council. Some political parties made no submissions at all.

3. BEFORE CONSIDERING WHICH NAMES WOULD BE ACCEPTED BY COUNCIL IT WAS AGREED THAT THE PUBLIC WOULD BE INVITED TO COMMENT ON THE SPECIFIC NAMES RECEIVED

After considering the views received from the public in response to the adverts and discussing the matter with my colleagues within the administration, I decided to recommend to committee that before they properly consider each and every suggestion received, that they publish the names received for comment in order to ensure that all members of the public would have an opportunity to air their views on every name under consideration. This changed the process already agreed upon, but I believe it allowed for even greater participation as the public could now comment on the suggestions received from a wide range of sources, before committee considered each name submitted.

Councillors would then be better informed when considering each specific suggestion about views that they received, whether they were criticisms or support for the names received. It is not true that there are any secret submissions or that I have refused to make available the submissions received. After discussions with my Head: Legal I was informed that in order to make available to a third party the actual submissions received I must first ask the person if they are happy to make it available. If they are not I will still make their submission available but without their name or contact details.

The committee accepted my report allowing for this additional consultation until 11th May 2007. After that the committee will meet and consider each and every recommendation and comment thereon, and forward their views to Council for finalization. Obviously, further names can continue to be received and will follow similarly consultative processes.

4. PROBLEMS WITH OBJECTIONS RECEIVED TO DATE

4.1 MANY OBJECTIONS ARE ABOUT PRINCIPLE OF RENAMING NOT ABOUT SPECIFIC NAMES: Over 95% of the objections received to date have objected to the principle of renaming. Given that council unanimously accepted that some streets would be renamed there is little point in members of the public simply sending in general complaints that they don’t want streets renamed. This included all political parties represented on Council. Council has accepted that some streets will be renamed and it is unlikely that council will rescind that decision. May I therefore urge that members of the public provide specific comment in support or not of specific suggestions for street renaming.
4.2 ARGUMENTS THAT THESE PROPOSED NAMES ARE A FAIT ACCOMPLI AND THAT IT IS POINTLESS FOR MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC TO OBJECT AS THEIR VIEWS WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED: As indicated above, the committee has not sat and deliberated on each and every name yet and so it is important for members of the public to put forward their views. Specific views will have to be assessed and so this is an important opportunity for people to provide specific reasons.
4.3 ARGUMENTS THAT SOME NAMES ARE REPEATED: As indicated above, different people/organizations may have made suggestions about renaming. This meant that some streets have more than one name, one name has been suggested for more than one street/facility, etc. Clearly the committee will have to look at this because the intention is not to have such as it would lead to confusion.
4.4 ARGUMENTS THAT SUGGEST ALL THE CITY’S STREETS ARE BEING RENAMED: eThekwini has over 30000 street names, with over 4000 being located in the former Durban central area. Even if all the proposals were to be accepted by the committee, this would mean less than 1 percent of the city’s street names would be changed and the rest would have been named during the colonial and apartheid eras.

I trust that over the next two weeks the public focuses on the consultative opportunities provided by this process and that we receive submissions which will allow the committee to clearly and unemotionally decide on which streets will be renamed and what names they will be given. This is an important aspect of public participation afforded us by our democracy.