━ Civic Movement · Western Cape, South Africa

Your community deserves a voice.

Across the Western Cape, communities are being left out of decisions that reshape their streets, destroy green spaces, and override their rights.

Decisions are being made by the Western Cape government without consultation, without transparency, and without accountability.

GroundRules is the movement that says: not without us.

Bergvliet, Cape Town • Since September 2025

This is where
GroundRules began.

In Bergvliet, a 1,120-learner high school has been fast-tracked without a Visual Impact Assessment, without an Environmental Impact Assessment, with slapdash community consultation done as an afterthought, and with a Traffic Impact Assessment that the City of Cape Town hid from residents for months until the Ombudsman had to order them to release it.

The community filed a formal legal objection to the Heritage Impact Assessment. Attended hearings where their presentation was cut short. Were barred from the site inspection. Filed a Section 49 appeal. Watched it get dismissed. And kept going.

This case is the reason GroundRules exists. Read it. Then imagine it happening in your neighbourhood.

10 Months

Community has been fighting since Sep 2025

Flawed Process

Project approved based on 1967 zoning and “draft” TIA

2x

PAIA requests refused before Ombudsman intervened

0

Environmental assessments conducted by the applicant

Complete Traffic Gridlock

This is a site locked in by narrow residential streets with no sidewalks, no safe pedestrian infrastructure, and no main arterial access. Yet, the area is expected to absorb the daily surge of over a thousand additional vehicle trips.

This will be the 9th large school within a 1.5km radius.

Western Leopard Toad

IUCN Endangered. Has been confirmed on Erf 1061 itself* during breeding migration season. No known specialist study was ever commissioned.

*Publicly verifiable at inaturalist.org.

━ WHAT WE STAND FOR

Three simple demands.

Everything GroundRules does flows from three principles that government is legally obligated to honour.

Consultation

Before decisions are made

Communities must be meaningfully consulted before development is approved – not presented with a fait accompli. This is both a legal right and a moral obligation.

Transparency

Open, honest, accessible

Planning approvals, impact assessments, and decision records must be publicly accessible in language that ordinary residents can understand and act on.

Accountabilty

Stop disregarding communities

When government runs flawed processes, ignores legal requirements that they themselves create, or dismisses objections without reason, there must be recourse. We pursue it.

Full Website Launching Soon.

A non-partisan civic movement advocating for communities across the Western Cape.
We are an information platform documenting planning, environmental, traffic and public participation concerns affecting all citizens.
From government, we demand consultation, transparency and accountability.