FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK - Adherents of the sage old tenet "If it ain't broke – don't fix it" were dealt a severe blow last month with the announcement of plans to "revamp" or "upgrade" Woodmill Lane. Presumably they know what that means in city planning and developer's parlance.
Word in the local bars and other important meeting places around town is that, of all the nooks and crannies in Knysna, Woodmill Lane is the least in need of "fixing". Just like Memorial Square, the area encompassing the church, Royal Hotel, the police station and Old Gaol on the main road or the concentrated art deco strip in Long Street, Woodmill Lane is one of the few areas in town with an authentic sense of history.
Few historical coastal towns left
Members of this lobby will lament that Mossel Bay, Knysna and perhaps Paternoster are the only coastal towns left with any historical edifices to brag about – an aspect many seem to think should be exploited to its fullest extent for its tourist value.
Towns and cities in the rest of the world spend millions preserving historical aspects while the heritage lobby feels that Knysna seems to be doing its best to destroy any semblance of historical charm.
Nah, the developers seem to be telling them. Only some sectors of the Woodmill Lane complex qualify as heritage sites and can thus escape a makeover/demolition/upgrading. It's within our rights to mould it according to our own vision of quasi-Tuscan glory, monumental postmodernist statements, a wattle and chipped-stone mesh or any other eyebrow-raising architectural hybrid should we so wish. In case you haven't noticed, modern is cool.
The new look if an upgrade project goes ahead.
Can't halt progress?
Well bully for you, would-be preservers of the status quo have retorted – we quite like the former renovations so carefully constructed to fit in with the original architectural flourishes. Putting up transparent Perspex screens as a backdrop to the early 20th century edifices is a bit like slapping metallic-blue lipstick and a sequinned boob tube on the Queen of England. (Send her off with a deft pat on the bum: "Off you go, girl – party time!'')
But don't you see, the developers' rebuttal will run, you can't halt progress. Anything that cannot compare with the sanitised, hi-tech fabulousness of big city malls just looks well… old. Run-down. Dirty, even. We're going to polish things up a bit here, modernise, replace this grimy old terracotta-clad terre with some gleaming new white tiles like a hospital soapie set, veer seriously in the direction of a nouveau small-town Sandton City. And frankly, we are struggling to grasp this barrage of ingratitude!
What if developers are wrong?
Hmmnn… progress is only four letters away from being a four-letter word, the preservationists will groan. We're not against it per se. Only if it reaches über alles status. What if you neoliberal one-percenters are wrong? What if Knysnarians don't want another over-sanitised, whitewashed interior, but are perfectly happy to nestle back into the glory days of Knysna as the charming, unpretentious seaside outpost it once was?
But we've we taken great care to incorporate all sorts of materials and decorative trimmings that would reflect local historical themes, the developers are bound to argue. The entire design is a glaring metaphor for the age-old timber industry that made this lovely town what it is. Would this not be enough for you?
Well, razing the real trees currently adorning the walkway and adding a few planks to the roof as a substitute – no matter how well appointed – not only represents an excruciating irony, but an exercise sadly lacking logic.
Why not lean in the opposite direction, chaps? Resort back to the carefree flea-market-like jumble of sound and colour that once made Knysna great. That should attract people back to Woodmill Lane more than just another bright-and-breezy, painfully stylised mall.
And on it goes, until one party has its way. Which is usually the developers' if the public does not react.
Which it can if it wants to (see below):
Last chance to comment
Residents have one week to comment on the renovations, draw up petitions, chain themselves to the gates or indulge in any other form of protest that might or might not land them in trouble.
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