Circling back after the last community engagement meetings held two years ago, the City of Cape Town again met with residents these past few weeks to present the latest updates to the draft District Spatial Development (SDF) and Environmental Management Frameworks (EMF).
The City is currently reviewing eight district plans, approved in 2012, and are inviting the public to comment on key phases.
Legally, the City is required to review these plans every 10 years.
At a meeting held at Alphen Centre in Constantia Main Road on Wednesday 3 August, Xanthea Limberg, chair of sub-council 20, explained that the draft District SDF and EMF technical reports, implementation plans and technical annexures that were currently open to public comment were informed by a public participation process that took place in 2019.
“Those submissions were consolidated and informed the changes that you will see before you. It is not presenting anything new, it is presenting updates and to give you a further opportunity to give input as we jointly set out the spatial vision for our city,’ said Limberg.
These submissions stem from 26 similar public participation gatherings that were hosted all over Cape Town from 11 November to 15 December two years ago.
At one such meeting held at Mowbray Town Hall on Wednesday 20 November 2019, residents were asked to write their suggestions on squares of paper and then stick them on three posters marked “ideas”, “opportunities” and “issues”.
Under “issues” residents listed lack of subsidised housing, unreliable public transport, lack of high schools, high-density development, poor public engagement, sewerage infrastructure and long-term water management as concerns.
If the fiery answer-and-question session that followed the Alphen Centre presentation is anything to go by, these same concerns are still very much on residents’ minds.
According to the City’s website, the purpose of the District SDF and EMF is “to guide decision making for public and private investment, to set an agenda and to coordinate interventions/implementation”, in line with other City spatial policies, for example, the Cape Town Densification Policy approved by Council in 2012.
This policy describes densification as “the increased use of space, both horizontally and vertically, within existing areas/properties and new developments, accompanied by an increased number of units and/or population threshold”.
Speaking at the community engagement meeting held at Alphen Centre, Kier Hennessy, district planner for the Southern District said one big change in the District SDF – through the National Spatial Development Framework (NSCF) – was that the Wynberg/Claremont area had been designated as a metropolitan node.
“Now on the ground, that doesn’t really change things. It is just that at metro level it has been recognised as a big opportunity area in the city.”
Hennessy added that this was not to say that there would be mixed-use with business everywhere between Claremont and Wynberg.
“So you need to read between the lines in the documentation which specifies what kind of development guidance is written into what parts within that node,” he said.
For better of for worse, densification (in the form of high-rise apartment developments) have already begun in the southern suburbs, most notably in Wynberg and Claremont areas zoned GR4 and GR2.
In GR4 zoned areas, buildings of up to 25 metres are allowed (five- to six-storeys). GR2 zoned areas allow for buildings of up to 15 m (three- to four-storeys).
Wynberg resident Jeffrey Heath shared his distress with the City’s plans for Wynberg at the Alphen Centre meeting.
He stated that plans always seemed good on paper, but that the problem lay in implementation.
Heath lives in Lindley Road, which falls within the triangular wedge between Bower, Alphen Hill and Constantia roads – a GR4 zoned area. He said that he had objected to a high-rise development that was put up in his street but with no luck.
“The developer appealed the first rejection and he won on appeal and he got the right to build Alphen Glen which is near Victoria Hospital.”
He said the basic services of the City were failing.
“They are 100 years old. Cast iron water pipes. We have had three water pipe bursts on recent record and those pipes cannot take the densification which is being brought in,” Heath said.
Phillippa Duncan, who introduced herself as a Wynberg resident and a Wynberg Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association (WRRA) member, said they understood that to a certain extent development had to happen. But, she said, they would hold the City and the developers accountable.
“If they are going to build on a property line, we expect the building inspector to actually do their job and to make them take it down and move it back,” said Duncan.
Responding to these concerns, Hennessy said the City was faced with the challenge of scarce resources in terms of development and supporting infrastructure.
“But the alternative is just to keep building on the edge of the city and in no time, in 20, 30, 40 years time, that infrastructure also needs more and more maintenance and before you know it you are dealing not with a 1 000 square kilometers of urban area, you are dealing with 10 000 square kilometers of urban area and 150 000 kilometers of pipe.”
He said the logic was that compactness lead to greater efficiencies in terms of service provision.
“Yes, infrastructure is 100 years old but it needs to be replaced.”
Hennessy said while densification was a painful exercise for everybody, the result was generally good, adding that when you densify, you have more money in the kitty to enhance public spaces.
“You tend to find that with enhanced streets, public spaces and parks, development wants to attach itself to that and leverage off it.”
Acknowledging that nobody wants a six-storey flat next to their house, he said that the logic of densification should be applied equally across the City.
“If you are within an identified development corridor, for example, where there is very good public transport, then there is a logic there for supporting densification as opposed to being far away from that,” he said.
With the comment period ending on 30 August, Hennessy encouraged residents to go and have a look at the District SDF and EMF published on the City’s website and submit their comments.
“It is a question of drilling down to what really is of import to you,” he said.
