(Napier Street), Adjacent to the Cape Quarter Building, Green Point
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HERITAGE/ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF PROPOSED UNDERGROUND PARKING BELOW A PART OF ERF 173320 (NAPIER STREET), ADJACENT TO THE CAPE QUARTER BUILDING, GREEN POINT Final report V3 HWC Case number 15101401 (In terms of Section 38 (1) of the NHRA of 1999) Prepared for FWJK Developments Suite 1009, 10th Floor, 4 Loop Street City Bowl Cape Town 8001 Tel: 021 418 7920 Fax: 086 248 0422 Mobile: 083 798 4044 Email: [email protected] On behalf of Tower Property Fund Limited November 2015 Prepared by Dave Halkett ACO Associates cc Physical: Unit C26, Prime Park, Mocke Rd, Diep River Postal: 8 Jacobs Ladder St James, 7945 [email protected] Tel: 021 7064104 Cell: 0731418606 Fax to e-mail: 086 603 7195 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 3 1.1 Additional developments in the area ........................................................................................... 4 1.2 Heritage Protection Overlay Zone (HPOZ).................................................................................. 4 2. DETAILED SPECIFICATIONS OF THE UNDERGROUND PARKING ............................................. 5 3. METHOD ......................................................................................................................................... 7 4. BRIEF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND .............................................................................................. 7 4.1 Cemeteries ................................................................................................................................. 7 4.2 The evolution of the Napier Street area ...................................................................................... 8 5. ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT ............................................................................................. 11 5.1 Archaeology ............................................................................................................................. 11 5.2 Other archaeological observations ........................................................................................... 14 6. Comments on the development requested by HWC ....................................................................... 15 6.1 De Waterkant Civic Association ................................................................................................ 15 6.2 City of Cape Town Environmental and Heritage Management Branch (EHM) .......................... 16 6.3 Sutherland Engineers ............................................................................................................... 17 6.4 Sacred Heart Catholic Church .................................................................................................. 17 7. INTEGRATED CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................................... 17 8. REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................. 20 Annexure 1: HWC response to the NID ......................................................................................... 22 Annexure 2: Comments of the Heritage Conservation body .......................................................... 25 Annexure 3: Comments of the Environmental and Heritage Management Branch ......................... 33 Annexure 4: Engineers report on lateral support system ............................................................... 36 Annexure 5: Confirmation of appointment of the engineer to review the Lateral Support system on behalf of the Catholic Archdiocese ................................................................................................ 42 2 1. INTRODUCTION ACO Associates cc have been approached by FWJK Developments to undertake a Heritage/ Archaeological Impact Assessment of a proposed 3 storey underground parking garage below Napier Street, adjacent and linked to the existing parking at the Cape Quarter building. The site of development is shown in Figure 1.The affected section of Napier Street is part of Erf 173320 and is the same erf as the Cape Quarter development (Figure 2). Figure 1: The proposed site of the underground parking (red polygon) in local context. While this is not a NEMA application, the area of the site measures 8239 square meters and is thus an application to HWC under Section 38 (1) of the National Heritage Resources Act, Act 25 of 1999. The additional specialist studies were requested by HWC (see Annexure 1) following the submission of a NID application by Ms B O’Donaghue (2015). HWC’s concerns are primarily to do with possible structural impacts on the adjacent Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Erf 107414 (a stone building opened in 1910), and the possibility that human remains could be found in Napier Street. No Visual Impact Assessment was requested as the parking will be located below ground. Concerns with the structural integrity of the Church will be addressed through the normal planning processes, and some correspondence is provided to indicate that the Catholic Church authorities are aware of the proposed development (and have consented to the construction). Issues regarding the structural integrity of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church during and after construction of the parking must be resolved at an engineering level and agreement must be reached between the developer and Church authorities with respect to the development. Indications of support have been sought from the De Waterkant Civic Association and the City’s Heritage branch. It is now well known that the area of Green Point to the north of Buitengracht Street was used extensively for both formal and informal cemeteries in the past, due both to its proximity to the growing town, but also due to optimal depth of soft dune soil. Numerous development related heritage studies have identified the presence of human remains in the area in most cases to the east of Somerset Road. This report aims to provide an assessment of the proposed site with respect to the likelihood of finding human remains, and other heritage. 3 1.1 Additional developments in the area There are 2 other developments proposed in the vicinity of the Cape Quarter by the same developer. This has relevance with respect to comments from the registered conservation body (De Waterkant Civic Association) and Municipality. The locations of the developments is shown on the cadastral diagram in Figure 1A. These are referred to as: “The Piazza” – which includes construction of 54 residential units on top of the existing Old Cape Quarter building between Hudson and Dixon Streets on Erf 168985, and “32 Napier Street” - which includes construction of a 5 story residential, retail and office building on Erf 10144. Figure 1A: The locations of other developments – 32 Napier (green rectangle), Napier underground parking (red rectangle) and the Piazza development (purple polygon). The other two developments are on separate erven and form part of separate applications. The Heritage Impact Assessments for these are being prepared and submitted by Ms Bridget O’Donaghue. 1.2 Heritage Protection Overlay Zone (HPOZ) The Cape Quarter and adjacent section of Napier Street are excluded from the HPOZ. Figure 1B: Areas shaded green are areas included in the HPOZ 4 2. DETAILED SPECIFICATIONS OF THE UNDERGROUND PARKING The proposed development is to construct an underground vehicular parking area of three levels under a section of Napier Street between Somerset Road and Jarvis Street to increase the capacity of the existing underground parking at the adjacent Cape Quarter retail development. Access to the new parking will be via the existing parking infrastructure at Cape Quarter and no new street level access points are required. A plan of the site is shown in Figure 2, while sections are provided in Figures 3 and 4. Figure 2: Plan showing the detailed location of the proposed underground parking in Napier Street 5 Figure 3: Section AA – Somerset Road to the left Figure 4: Section BB – in the direction of Signal Hill with the Catholic Church indicated on the right 6 3. METHOD ACO Associates has examined the proposed development in order to make a heritage risk assessment of the site. This has focussed primarily on the likelihood of encountering human remains on the site. This report is a desktop specialist heritage/archaeological study that relies heavily on the existing documentary material accumulated during previous archaeological and heritage studies assessments in the area. In order to understand possible archaeological and other heritage impacts at the site, we have relied on available archival material from a number of sources and used them to graphically represent historical features in relation to the present urban landscape We have also drawn on personal knowledge of the area and on documents in the growing ACO Associates cc archive. A large body of documents pertaining to burial in the Green Point area has been amassed as part of the “Green Point Burial Grounds Project” that is funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund. There is therefore an extensive body of knowledge about the likelihood of impacting human remains, and other types of heritage material at the Napier Street site. Comments have been requested from the De Waterkant Civic Association and the City’s Heritage branch. Due to the tight timeframes wrt submissions to the City, a draft copies of the HIA were submitted to both the Civic Association and