Blaauwberg residents locked in battle over dune development

According to the draft Local Spatial Development Framework, four-storey apartment blocks are proposed to be built on this wetland. The land has been listed on the City of Cape Town BioNet as a level 1 Critical Biodiversity Area. Photos: Steve Kretzmann

• In a first for the City of Cape Town, a community-led Local Spatial Development Framework (LSDF) for Big Bay is being prepared.
• A LSDF provides a detailed development vision for an area.
• Part of the draft LSDF proposes thousands of apartments to be built on ecologically sensitive land on the urban edge.
• But three community groups are opposed to the plan contained in the draft LSDF and allege the views of a significant number of residents are not reflected in the document.

Residents of Blaauwberg on Cape Town’s west coast are locked in a battle over a proposed development on ecologically sensitive land in Big Bay.

About 30 families are currently living on the land in shacks.

The development plan for the kitesurfing and tourist drawcard suburb of Big Bay, in the form of a Local Spatial Development Framework (LSDF), is fully funded by the residents of Blaauwberg. It is supposed to reflect the residents’ vision for their area.

The Big Bay LSDF is the first such planning document to be created as a Community-Driven Planning Initiative, according to deputy mayor and mayco member for spatial planning and environment, Eddie Andrews.

But thousands of residents of Big Bay and surrounds have rejected the proposed development on the land, a state-owned 270-hectare plot of vacant land bordering the Blaauwberg Nature Reserve. Known as erf 1117, the vacant land is owned by the national Department of Public Works and Infrastructure.

The draft Big Bay LSDF submitted to the City proposes more than 3,500 apartments – including more than 800 affordable housing units – in multi-storey gated estates, as well as a civic centre, community facilities, a mixed use development, and free-standing houses to be built on erf 1117.

The plan has been led by the Blaauwberg Spatial Association (BSA) which was set up for the purpose. Opponents say it has fewer than 300 members. On the other side, civil engineer and manager of the group Community Representation for Blaauwberg, Michelle Collins says 1,600 people responded to a survey distributed through Facebook saying they did not accept the plan in its current form, with only five respondents saying they supported it.

She said about 4,000 comments on the LSDF had also been submitted by residents, particularly related to plans for erf 1117, but “not one was implemented” in the final draft sent to the City.

She said Community Representation for Blaauwberg was also copied in on 670 other letters sent to the City as comment on its Biodiversity Spatial Plan, calling for protection of erf 1117.

She said respondents were sympathetic to the need for affordable housing, but erf 1117 was critical for biodiversity and unsuitable for the type of development proposed. The land was on the city’s urban edge and far from areas offering sufficient job opportunities. The apartment blocks proposed would also be incongruous with the surrounding residential areas, said Collins.

Bulldozed

But most importantly, said Collins, the community appeared to have been bulldozed by the City and the BSA, with their input being limited and not taken into account.

Head of biodiversity and planning at the Greater Tableview Action Forum, David Ayres, said taking time to understand the LSDF as a resident was “not the most exciting thing to do”. Yet, he said, thousands of residents had done so.

“People have had enough of policies and plans that don’t make sense being forced onto them.”

Ayres said as part of the Community-Driven Planning Initiative, the BSA were compelled to engage with local community organisations. “We didn’t even get an email.”

“They simply haven’t complied with their obligation to to engage with communities, so can’t be said to be a community-driven initiative.”

The chair of the Bloubergstrand Residents Association, Jan Derksen, said he had been fired from the BSA board after sharing an earlier draft of the LSDF in July last year with local residents who had experience in town planning and construction.

Derksen said it looked like the planners hadn’t even visited the site where they proposed building four-storey apartment blocks.

“When you do affordable housing, you look for areas that are easily developed. [Erf 1117] is massive sand dunes. It will cost way more to build than places that are suitable.”

He said the City Spatial Planning and Environment department were “ongeskik” and “rode roughshod over everything”.

Community planning initiative

The Community-Driven Planning Initiative to create an LSDF for Big Bay was given the go-ahead by the City Council in 2021. According to the subcouncil report, the initiative allowed “communities to formulate a design and visionary urban regeneration strategy for their local area”.

The drafting of an LSDF as a Community-Driven Planning Initiative was motivated by the ratepayers’ and residents’ associations, to “be produced under the oversight, and with the participation of the City, but at the cost of the community”, stated the report.

The BSA was subsequently set up in December 2022 to represent the community on a steering committee that includes two ward councillors, the City’s urban planning department, and town planning consultants, CNdP, who were appointed by the BSA.

A counter on the BSA website indicates the community has contributed R1.3-million on the planning document so far.

BSA chair Anthony Avidon said the Big Bay Master Property Owners Association (BBMPOA) had contributed most of the funding, with the balance coming from individuals, estates, and businesses in the community.

Avidon did not give BSA’s membership, but said it had the support of the BBMPOA, “which has over 2,000 members”.

Avidon said the BSA had “facilitated more than 30 community engagements to provide community input to CndP”.

He said community meetings had supported the application to the City Council for the LSDF, the establishment of the BSA as the vehicle to effect it, and the submission of the draft to the City.

“These were community-based decisions, not ‘BSA’ decisions.”

Avidon said the BSA had received “many affirmations of support from across the community, including the existing residents on erf 1117”.

But some of the residents living in the approximately 30 homes on erf 117 who GroundUp spoke to said no-one had ever approached them.

“People don’t engage with us. They only chase us away,” said Jonathon Bailey-Lewis, who has lived on the land for 18 years, without water, sanitation, or electricity. “The City, government doesn’t come speak to us. Never,” he said.

Emile Martin, who has lived on the land for seven years, said the 30-odd households on the land would like to give input into plans for the land. “We want to give our side of the story, try figure something out.”

But Avidon said the community’s views had been “deeply considered”, along with the views of the City and state administration.

Jonathon Bailey-Lewis says he’s been living on erf 1117 for 18 years. He, along with most other people living on the vacant land, make a living chopping alien vegetation to sell as firewood along the West Coast Road, and collecting recyclable material from surrounding suburbs. Bailey-Lewis, like with Samuel van Niekerk (sorting firewood) and Emile Martin (third from left) say no-one has ever asked their opinion about development on erf 1117. Included in the photo are Valerie Keyser seated on the far left, 16-year-old Aiden Klaaste, and Rosaline Graaf.

Critical biodiversity area

The draft LSDF proposes incorporating a little more than a third of erf 1117, north of the proposed developments, into the adjacent Blaauwberg Nature Reserve.

But Collins said the entire erf 1117 should be protected and incorporated in the nature reserve. But if development did take place, it should take into account the landscape.

The City of Cape Town’s BioNet (a map of biodiversity priorities) shows the southern section where development would occur is listed as a Critical Biodiversity Area of the highest importance (level 1a), with other sections listed as high-grade Ecological Support Areas.

The City’s draft Biodiversity Spatial Plan 2025 states that Level 1a Critical Biodiversity Areas are “irreplaceable or near-irreplaceable for meeting the City’s biodiversity targets”, and that high-grade Ecological Support Areas “must be maintained in at least fair ecological condition” in order to support the ecological functioning of a Critical Biodiversity Area.

“CBAs must remain intact in order to meet national biodiversity targets … (they) are also required to secure Cape Town’s unique biodiversity into the future and in an effort to strive for the principle of sustainable development,” states the City’s draft biodiversity plan.

The provincial Biodiversity Spatial Plan of 2023 also states that biodiversity loss in Critical Biodiversity Areas “should not be permitted”. “Ideally, developments should be avoided in these areas,” states the provincial plan.

Planning contradictions

The City’s overarching Municipal Spatial Development Framework maps Big Bay as an incremental growth and consolidation area, with the “desired spatial outcomes” being increased density through the building of second or third dwellings on existing built properties. It states: “Open space corridors and pockets of agriculturally zoned land (such as erf 1117 currently) should be retained.”

The municipal framework states that affordable housing initiatives should be situated “within areas of economic potential and focused public sector investment … e.g. urban nodes and development corridors”, and places Big Bay outside of these.

Big Bay and erf 1117 are also within the Koeberg Urgent Protection Action Zone which extends 16km from the nuclear power station. High density development in this area could violate nuclear regulations.

But the Blaauwberg District Plan of 2023, which is supposed to align with the higher order municipal plan, identifies erf 1117 as being a site for “potential publicly assisted housing projects”, and is singled out as one of two “significant new development areas” within the Blaauwberg district.

Public participation

Andrews said the draft Big Bay LSDF had been submitted to the City as a proposal and was being assessed.

He could not say when the process would be finalised.

He said the plan would have to be consistent with law and the City’s relevant policies and frameworks.

“Should the plan be found to be compliant, then the City will follow the due statutory process for the LSDF, including public participation.”

However, Collins said she didn’t have much faith in the further public participation process.

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