The
Harbour Arch development, which will be the largest of its kind in the Cape
Town city centre, was approved by the Municipal Planning Tribunal on Thursday.
The
parcel of Foreshore land, spanning 5.3 hectares, was previously owned by
Transnet but has since been bought by Amdec for its R14-billion mixed-use
development.
The
rezoning application for the development was approved in August 2012. Amdec,
however, then applied to amend the conditions of approval in December 2018.
This was to account for a change in lease ownership and to adjust the size of
the development to include residential units.
The
application was met with six objections, four from Urban Design and two from
housing activist group Ndifuna Ukwazi. The bulk of the four-hour hearing on
Thursday centred around technicalities regarding the proposed height for the
buildings and the parking bay structure.
During
its presentation, Ndifuna Ukwazi and Reclaim the City focused on the lack of
affordable housing included in the development, which they believed would
further exclude poor and working-class people from the city centre.
They
called on the City to reject the application until it included the provision of
affordable housing either within the development itself or the surrounding
area.
“We’re
still living in this system where a few white males get to decide in the
interest of the public what should happen to make a building as big as Harbour
Arch spatially just,” Karen Hendricks, Reclaim the City Woodstock Chapter
Leader, told GroundUp.
“The
approach is unjust and we feel that poor and working-class people are still
denied access to living in the inner city … the City of Cape Town are
prioritising the wants of the wealthy,” said Hendricks.
Reclaim
the City and Ndifuna Ukwazi based their argument on the Spatial Planning and
Land Use Management Act of 2013, stating that the Act compels the City to
further spatial justice in Cape Town.
Municipal
Planning Tribunal Chair Dave Daniels disagreed. He said that the Act asks that
the principle of spatial justice be taken into consideration and this had been
done. Daniels said that to impose and enforce an affordable housing condition
on the development would be “extremely difficult”.
“To
impose conditions that would halt a project that would bring R14 billion into
the city, I just think would be irrational,” Daniels told GroundUp.
In the
developers’ presentation, they stated that there is no obligation to include
affordable housing into the development. However, in order to show their
commitment to spatial justice, the Amdec Group is developing another site in
Ottery. The group has earmarked a ten hectare piece of land, where 1,000
affordable housing units will be built.
“We
are doing our bit to create 1,000 houses for people in our less affluent
communities, who have in the past been excluded from good quality housing at
reasonable prices,” Amdec CEO James Wilson told GroundUp. “We need
some healing from our past and investment into communities who were previously
excluded from economic growth in our country.”
Wilson
said he hopes that the Harbour Arch development will inspire confidence in
other developers and lead to the expansion of the Culemborg area.
He said they
would be happy to engage with Ndifuna Ukwazi and Reclaim the City about
possible sites in the inner city that could be developed in the future, but he
also hopes other developers will see the opportunity to create affordable
housing in the neighbouring buildings around Harbour Arch.
Ndifuna Ukwazi and Reclaim the City said they will discuss what the Harbour Arch decision means with their members and “plan possible action on how to disrupt this kind of property power in future”.https://allafrica.com/stories/201910250605.html
