Tribunal To REZONE Lonehill Shopping Centre?

As I am about to pen this post, I have just received a call from one of my INNER Circle Business Forum members to say that one of our member's elderly parents had been attacked in their home in Benoni last night. His mother was killed and his father is in surgery right now.

This sobering message is a chilling reminder why we all need to be constantly concerned about our Lonehill Community Initiative and to stimulate for the highest quality concern and commitment of its leadership.

Talking about community issues, a seriously harassed and frazzled resident tells me that there is an an upcoming rezoning tribunal concerning the Lonehill Shopping Centre scheduled for the 24th May. Given this resident's annoyance for noise levels apparently emanating from this centre, it was no surprise to hear the uncomplimentary perception of the LRA's apparent lack of interest on the matter. I know nothing about such tribunal, so I can't help much. Can anyone else?

The Lonehill Shopping Centre owners appeared in a recent news item: Sunday Times Metro - 29 April 2007 - The Battle of Lonehill Mall - 'A Joburg High Court judge has threatened to throw two wealthy property developers in jail if they continue to build on the Lonehill Shopping Mall without council permission'.

I suppose the question can be asked as to why the LRA does not make a clear announcement that such a serious tribunal is taking place over such a prominent Lonehill landmark and issue... and provide information for all parties, whether for or against, to lodge their views and opinions.

Hmmm... all of which introduces perfectly the topic I was going to lead with this week... that of the need for Principled Leadership in our Lonehill community.

Let's face it, leadership has been sorely tested and found desperately wanting in not only Lonehill's recent past, but also in the World Bank - see World Bank board majority want Wolfowitz to resign - and now once again in our own hallowed South African rugby halls of leadership shame - see Rugby bosses drop ball with impunity and further highlighted in this shocking interview - see Transcript of 702 Talk Radio presenter John Robbie's interview with Saru president Oregan Hoskins over the Luke Watson saga.

So where do leaders constantly get it wrong in today's society? Simply, in my opinion, they believe that their personal values can be imposed by their authoritarian decree on their community (note that deliberately ignoring problems is the other side of the same authoritarian leadership coin). When in actual fact, their community has a natural understanding of what rock-steady priniciples cannot and should not be violated. Non-principled leadership therefore undermines the very support and respect it desires from its followers.

What the Lonehill community needs desperately is to identify a set of PRINCIPLES by which the LRA leadership should be guided. This has not yet been done to date (hence my continued call for an indaba of all sector leaders and interested parties in Lonehill)... and therefore the community cannot expect to be led by anything other than the arbitrary whims and personal values of transient leaders. This oversight or lack of foresight will continue to hamper any 'leaders' efforts in Lonehill.

Principled leadership would see our community leaders (amongst all stakeholders, no matter who they are) maturely rising up above their personal values and openly-declared personal vested interests (which almost everyone must have in the community) to apply rock-steady principled decisions to solve issues such as raised in this post.

So what would Principled LRA Leadership do on the above Lonehill Shopping Centre issue... it would recognise that opposing stakeholders in the community have opposing values which are subject to an upcoming Tribunal Review. It would recognise that it needs to apply all its resources to giving maximum publicity to both stakeholders to represent their views and allow due process to take its course.

So the minimum that should be done is to make the community aware of the date of the tribunal and how the different interests can represent their opinions.

Regards
Trevor Nel - 011 705-2790
Lonehill Resident