Cape Town - Those fighting to save the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA) from being paved over by private developers want it declared a heritage site.
“We want full heritage status and to have blanket protection for the whole area,” says Nazeer Sonday, spokesman for the PHA Food and Farming Campaign.
The campaign, along with the Schaapkraal Civic and Environmental Association and several other organisations, are fighting the developments on several fronts.
Last month, additional documentation was added to the complaint which the public protector’s office was first asked to investigate in 2014.
The complaint to the public protector says: “The city is now poised to grant wholesale permission to developers who have by now (since our original complaint couriered to you on April 23, 2014) already named the streets for 26 000 - 46 000 houses, two shopping centres, a private school, a private prison, community services and light industry on prime agricultural land.”
They have asked the public protector to halt the processing of all the developments in the PHA. They also want the investigation to include what land has been bought in the PHA, at what cost and to what end.
“Housing over prime agricultural land will lead to the slow death of the PHA which will lead to the skyrocketing of food prices in the city. The slow death of the aquifer having being built over its primary recharge zone will destroy our future potable water and lead everyone in the city paying high prices for desalinated water in the future,” they said in the complaint.
In May, a special appeals committee dismissed an earlier appeal to rezone several erven in the south-western corner of the PHA from agricultural use to sub-divisional area overlay zone. The appellant was Exclusive Access Trading and the respondent Heritage Western Cape, while the PHA Food and Farming Campaign was interested and affected party.
Sonday said this was for the U-Vest development for 6 000 houses, shopping centres and a private school, and that the developers were appealing the heritage ruling.
In the ruling, Shekesh Sirkar, chairman of the appeals committee, noted the close proximity of the PHA to consumers helped to keep fresh vegetables affordable and available throughout the year.
“The PHA farm lands and seasonal wetlands are the last naturally occurring recharge for the Cape Flats Aquifer. The aquifer is a free source of irrigation water for farmers and is also the future potable water for the City of Cape Town,” he said while noting it also employed more than 4 000 workers.
Sirkar said the committee had to weigh up the socio economic benefits of a future development against protection of the PHA heritage resources.
Mxolisi Dlamuka, chief executive of Heritage Western Cape, said the organisation had approved an application on adjacent land which had been subject to sand mining and was not being actively used for agriculture.
Cape Argus