Cape Town – The Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA) Campaign will from today argue in the Western Cape High Court that the City's decision to rezone pieces of the PHA from horticultural use to urban development should be reviewed and set aside.
Thousands of housing units and shopping malls are among the proposed developments which the PHA Campaign has argued would put the City's breadbasket at risk.
The campaign and farmer Nazeer Sonday are the two applicants in the case. The 13 respondents include MECs and their departments as well as the City.
James-Brent Styan, spokesperson for Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning MEC Anton Bredell, said on Tuesday: "The province is in court defending the process whereby it made a decision relating to potential development in a small section of the PHA only…
"The province’s main goal is also to protect and look after the PHA farming area. Not a centimetre of land currently being used for farming in the PHA area is at risk of being taken over by the current developments under consideration. This includes Mr Sonday’s land."
Here are 9 reasons why it's believed the Philippi Horticultural Area should be protected against any form of development:
* Only 20 minutes from the CBD, the PHA comprises an area of 3 000 hectares on the Cape Flats which has been used for farming as far back as the mid-1800s because of its mild climate and access to water.
* The primary difference between the PHA and other farmland is its location above the Cape Flats Aquifer. It's believed the aquifer is the reason farms exist inside the city limits.
Video: Courtney Africa/African News Agency (ANA)
* The PHA supplies 80% of Cape Town’s vegetables, sold unbranded in supermarkets.
* The price of vegetables will sky-rocket when the farmers and workers are ejected. The poor on the Cape Flats will be the most affected. Eighty percent of Cape Flats households are already food-stressed.
* It acts as a guardian to a freshwater aquifer which has been estimated could supply 30% of Cape Town’s potable water.
* Much of the 630 square kilometre area of the Cape Flats Aquifer is already under tar and concrete. Even if a small portion of the PHA is developed, it could have severe consequences for the area.
* It is the last area that water from rainfall can permeate down into the aquifer and recharge it. But over the years development on top of the aquifer has left it increasingly polluted. One of the areas targeted for development is the most fertile portion of the remaining catchment area.
* It is feared that if the PHA is destroyed, the people who live and work on it will not be housed in the proposed housing units but into already crowded townships nearby. It's believed 3 000 PHA farmworkers could lose their jobs, most of them women and the youth. Another 3 000 who work in support services will also lose their jobs, as well as 30 000 livelihoods dependent on the farmlands.
* There is a particular concern about the effects of climate change, with it being argued that the custodianship of water resources and local food security should not be compromised.