The city council has published advertisements saying the Cape Town Stadium “is open for business” in an attempt to attract clients to help to foot the huge cost of running the stadium.
The adverts offer “venues to suit every need”, from board meetings and conferences to product launches and “fairy tale weddings”.
To date the stadium has not been able to attract enough business to break even.
Its total operating costs since 2009/10 are R436m, while the total income is R92m.
Ratepayers have had to make up the R344m shortfall to keep the stadium going.
The city cites “extremely restrictive zoning laws” on Green Point Common as one of the major reasons why the stadium is running at a loss.
It is now asking the provincial government to scrap some of these restrictions so there can be “full commercialisation of the stadium”.
It would also like zoning restrictions scrapped to make way for a four-storey commercial block to be built next to the stadium – for offices or a hotel – and a four-storey parking lot.
Beverley Schäfer, councillor for the area, said yesterday the council was “between a rock and a hard place”.
The council had to pay a huge amount to run it, but could not run commercial operations because of the conditions of approval when the province gave the authorisation.
“The rest of the common won’t be touched,” Schäfer said.
However, some Capetonians believe getting the nod to commercialise the stadium may be the thin edge of the wedge that leads to incremental commercialisation of Green Point Common.
They say the city is asking the province to lift restrictions on the common in a “far-reaching and general way”.
The common was given to the public in perpetuity nearly 100 years ago for open space for sport and recreation.
When the stadium was proposed, there was fierce public opposition.
The Green Point Ratepayers’ and Residents Association has said it is not opposed to commercialisation next to the stadium, as this land has already been “alienated”.
The association is “absolutely opposed to any further built infrastructure on the remainder of the Green Point Common”.
“This land was given to the residents of the city as public open space for recreation, and this is their inalienable right. It may not be sold off to commercialisation, not even to ‘save’ the stadium. This public open space is more precious to future generations of Capetonians than the stadium,” its submission said.
James Loock, who helped draft the association’s response, said the social value of the common far exceeded its financial value.
“Look at Central Park in New York. That must be some of the most valuable real estate on the planet, but they’re not proposing building on it, because they know how valuable it is as public open space. The same with Hyde Park in London.”
The Cape Times asked the city to spell out what conditions it wanted removed, and whether this would apply to the whole common, but had not received a response at the time of publication. - The Cape Times