Zenprop, the developers behind Discovery’s multibillion-rand head office, will include numerous heritage features in the soon to be built R4bn head office at the River Club in Cape Town, having listened to the cries of the communities in the historical area who say the development will lie on sacred land.
The controversial development is set to house the SA head office of global retail group Amazon.
It will be built on land where SA’s Khoi and San, now known as the First Nations, lived hundreds of years ago.
The two communities fought cattle-raiding Portuguese soldiers in 1510 as well as Dutch settlers in the 1650s.
The project is located on a 15ha parcel of land earmarked for development by the Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust (LLPT). The trust includes Zenprop, a private developer founded in 1998.
Zenprop’s management team has experience in developing and investing in property in SA, the Netherlands, US, UK, Germany and Portugal. Its SA properties includes Mall of the South, Accentures’s corporate campus in Waterfall, Midrand, and Discovery’s national office in Sandton.
“We want to create more than an office park. This is why so much care has been taken in designing this development,” Zenprop CEO James Tannenberger says.
In total, Zenprop has approved development rights for a 150,000m² mixed-use development which will be undertaken in phases, based on tenant demand. Amazon is expected to take up 70,000m² of the property.
According to Tannenberger, the project will be a mixed-used development which will include offices, bespoke retail and residential space, with rights for a hotel, as well as a private school and gym.
However, the LLPT is not in a position to comment on any potential tenants at this stage and will maintain compliance with all contractual and confidentiality undertakings that are the norm for commercial undertakings and obligatory under legislation, such as the Protection of Personal Information Act.
Preparation of the site and other development activities in accordance with the environmental authorisation has started.
The construction of buildings will commence after building plan approval, which is imminent, according to Tannenberger.
The development site will include 68% of dedicated green open spaces, with 6km of running and walking paths and ecological trails that will be open to the public.
The open spaces will feature an indigenous medicinal garden, a heritage-eco information trail and a garden amphitheatre for use by the First Nations and the public. The project will also provide developer-subsidised inclusionary housing and a first-of-its-kind First Nation heritage cultural and media centre in the City of Cape Town.
The development will be built in a number of stages. There will be two main development precincts, with a third precinct that will include access roads and utility servitudes, wide ecological areas on the site, and rehabilitation of the adjoining riverine.
Tannenberger has disputed some of the information that has been reported about the project. “While the media have quoted certain of the activists claiming that there are 50,000 objections, this is not true and part of the false narrative that is being generated by those that are unhappy that their objections were considered but validly dismissed by the competent authorities.”
He says that under SA’s planning, environmental and administrative laws, petitions of this nature hold no weight and are completely disregarded by the authorities and the courts.
“The first so-called petition, which the residents’ association chairperson claimed to have been signed by over 22,000 people, was completely disregarded by the officials in considering valid appeals to the rezoning, which by law the officials would have to ignore,” says Tannenberger.
“The reason is that petitioners can state whatever they want in a petition without it being factually correct, and the anonymous and uninformed, anywhere in the world, can simply click on the support button on the site, without any consideration of the actual application’s content or the expert reports or the appeal decisions. This claim has now risen to 50,000, again without any verification of the facts.”
In the development’s heritage and environmental process there is a database of about 490 interested and affected parties, including all officials within the various local and provincial departments who were required to comment, as well as residents and private organisations that noted themselves as stakeholders, according to Tannenberger.
Of these, there were 20 objections and appeals raised to the final decision of the heritage and environmental process. These appeals were overturned by the environmental affairs minister.
In a rezoning process, there were 180 interested and affected parties that provided comments, of which nine lodged objections and appeals to the independent planning tribunal decision. These appeals were all dismissed by the City of Cape Town in a final appeal decision.
The LLPT played no role in the formation and representation of the First Nation Collective, comprising the majority of First Nations leaders in the peninsula and further afield, including the San Royal House of Nǀǀnǂe represented by Queen Katrina Esau, who lives in Upington and is the only remaining fluent speaker of N|uu.
Tannenberger says the project will bring much-needed economic growth and job creation to Cape Town, including 5,239 construction jobs and 860 other jobs when operational and will also contribute to the protection of the city’s biodiversity and will see the memorialisation and celebration of the First Nations people whose history and heritage has been underappreciated and under-recognised for a long time.
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