Rejuvenation of Burgers Park to cost millions
Fencing, kids' areas and university collaborations were some of the ideas stakeholders had in mind for the park.
Stakeholders in Central Pretoria recently gathered after a large clean-up to discuss plans to rejuvenate Burgers Park, a process said to cost millions.
The clean-up held at the park on March 31, led by Ms Africa 2024, McCayla Warriker, involved partners such as the Tshwane Leadership Foundation, Manhattan Hotel, Park Lodge, Burger’s Park Student Hotel, the Tshwane Metro and Centre for Faith and Community.
On April 7, the stakeholders got together in Menlyn to plan ways forward for the national heritage site and to ensure it remains maintained.
Conrad Kgwadi, the chairperson for the area’s community upliftment precinct (CUP), said the restoration is going to come to fruition whether stakeholders remain or leave.
“We’re at a point where we’re saying we can join hands and if you don’t want to, that’s fine, we are moving ahead anyway,” Kgwadi said.
Kgwadi said the plan to erect a Clearview fence around the park is estimated to cost R2.9 million, alongside repairs to the park’s toilets estimated to cost R119 000.
He believed if more stakeholders came on board, the current ones would continue to build stronger bonds, and the task could be completed easier and faster.
“When the fencing is done, we can start looking at security and then we as a community must come together and agree when the park will be closed at certain times for the work. If we join hands, it will be much easier because we all love it, I can see that. We’re attached to that park, it’s ours,” Kgwadi said.
Kgwadi invited stakeholders to offer alternatives.
Billy Sepuru said the work the parties plan to execute must be long-lasting, even without the CUP in place.
“This remains a council facility but even if we find ourselves with a CUP, we should still be in a position to maintain it, so we are going to be very involved in the process,” Sepuru said.
Sepuru said they are the only region with over 40 CUPs and that these assist in addressing specific issues that residents in the CBD may have. Each CUP must align with the area’s activities and the different directors involved must be able to maintain it.
Tshwane Mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya expressed her excitement about the prospect of inner-city youth having a safe environment outdoors to enjoy as she compared a childhood spent in a CBD apartment block to cage-like.
“I like the idea of an area for children specifically because growing up in the flats can feel like a cage. We who come from villages have big fields to run and play in but in the city, it’s limited so that would be wonderful for children, but it needs to be safe,” she said.
“We can’t tell people to come to the park only to be robbed or for their kids to be kidnapped, so TMPD’s presence is non-negotiable. I need to see the TMPD visibility, as in other public spaces,” Moya said.
The mayor also addressed some of the gripes and concerns that stakeholders had at the meeting, like the Manhattan Hotel, which claimed taxis illegally parked outside their building are hurting business.
MMC for Community Safety, Hannes Coetzee expressed his optimism for the project, saying that it is an example of the good that a community can do when they come together.
He hoped that initiatives such as these would bring about change in the status quo.
“We need to change our complete culture, instead of sitting and asking what can the government do for us, we must be proactive in helping our communities and that’s what I see here. It is residents such as these that make this the City of Excellence,” Coetzee said.
MMC for Human Settlements, Aaron Maluleka envisioned a bustling social business district that is enclosed in the future, saying that the revamp is just the start.
“In future, we must look into closing the precinct and further developing the area just like Melrose in Johannesburg, we can have that here. We would have to do it with the community and adhere to environmental regulations. Rooftops can be converted into food gardens, we can use solar lights, harvest rainwater to irrigate and so forth, so it’s a project that excites us all,” Maluleka said.
Ms Africa McCayla Warriker said the greenhouse can be converted into an educational programme in collaboration with students from TUT and Tuks to cultivate vegetables.
“Obviously, there’s a lot that needs to happen in the park first but we found coffee trees that successfully grow in the greenhouse which, if you know about coffee, it grows in the coffee belt. So finding it here is already a miracle and it’s a very niche thing. So if the park is cultivated in the correct way we already know now that there is a climate for coffee, so if that greenhouse is now turned into cultivation space for coffee and the kiosk is regenerated, you then have a world-class experience. From farm to table in the inner city of Pretoria,” Warriker said.
The stakeholders plan to have Burgers Park’s restoration bearing fruit when the Capital City hosts the U20 in two months to showcase what clean and public spaces can do for an inner-city community.
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