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Peter
Robinson resigns from the CMDA Board
Professor
Peter Robinson, current Deputy Chairperson and the longest
serving member of the CMDA Board of Directors, has resigned.
He has relinquished his post to Soya Govender, Dean of the
Faculty of Science at ML Sultan Technikon.
Peter became involved in the development of Cato Manor since
the days of the Cato Manor Forum in the early 1990s. When
the CMDA was turned into a non-profit organisation he was
elected to serve as its first chairperson.
Times were turbulent, Cato Manor was experiencing land invasions
and the CMDA was thrown in at the deep end. Post-apartheid
South Africa ushered in new set of rules for governance. A
mandate to better the lives of the Cato Manor communities
became priority number one. The needs of the old Indian communities
which were dispossessed of their land had to be balanced with
the needs of land invaders who were claiming a stake in the
land which they deemed to be theirs historically.
A firm but sympathetic leader was required to steer the project,
and Peter’s understanding of South Africa’s political dynamics
as well as his professional expertise enabled him to do the
job admirably.
Peter, who is a Professor of Town Planning and Architecture
at the University of Natal, will not be entirely lost to the
Cato Manor project as he is heading a research and documentation
project commissioned by the European Union.
“It is rewarding to look back and see how much progress has
been made in Cato Manor since the early 1990s,” Peter told
IZWI. “We are now starting to achieve some of the original
goals of making Cato Manor a highly sought after place to
live, where people have access to a range of opportunities
and where economic development projects are starting to take
off. Along the way we have encountered and overcome many obstacles.
At times the future of the project looked gloomy, but the
CMDA, Board members and the people of Cato Manor always provided
the stimulus to carry on.
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Peter
Robinson bids farewell to Snowy Dlamini, CMDA Board
Secretary. |
Below:
The new Deputy Chairman
of the CMDA’s Board of Directors, Soya Govender.
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“I
view my resignation as simply re-positioning myself within the
Cato Manor project. The task of documenting the experiences
of Cato Manor is an exciting challenge and I am looking forward
to it,” said Peter.
The purpose of the project is to reflect on and record all the
experiences of the Cato Manor project so that lessons can be
made available, in a well documented form, to others involved
in large scale urban re-development projects. These lessons
will not only be confined to Durban and South Africa, but can
be used by international communities.
According to the Board’s secretary, Snowy Dhlamini, other Board
members ‘reluctantly’ accepted Peter’s resignation and wished
him well for the future. They acknowledged his outstanding leadership,
commitment and loyalty to the Cato Manor project since its inception
almost ten years ago. |
