Civic groups opposed to a R4.6bn office development in Observatory, Cape Town, whose tenants will include online retail giant Amazon, said the developers’ presence on the site is in contempt of a court order and have approached the Western Cape High Court to stop maintenance work.
Construction of the complex, that will include affordable housing and a public park precinct and indigenous centre, started in September but was interdicted in March to allow for further consultation between developers and indigenous groups.
At the time, deputy Judge President Patricia Goliath ruled that “the development of substantial economic infrastructural and public benefits can never override the fundamental rights of First Nations peoples”.
Her judgment has been taken on appeal by developers, the city of Cape Town, the Western Cape government and the First Nations Collective at the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The developers, the Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust (LLPT) returned some staff to the site last month to conduct maintenance on the site after wet winter weather, but said no further building was taking place. Environmental work is being done on the polluted canalised rivers.
But the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council and the Observatory Civic Association, have returned to the courts saying developers must leave the site. The legal teams on Tuesday agreed to have the matter postponed until July 27.
Tariq Jenkins of the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council said the developers were acting as a “law unto themselves”.
“The LLPT will learn that this site is not their playground to do as they wish.”
About 120 construction workers and indigenous people from the First Nations Collective were outside court on Tuesday to show their support for the project.
Builder Llewelyn Stemmet said he was sent home in March and some of his former colleagues are without work and struggling to make ends meet.
“Most of them have to provide for their families. So when they are not able to buy bread for their families [they] become very stressed. And what do people do when they become stressed? They smoke and drink,” he said. “I don’t know why people are protesting the development.”
Jenkins, who at times struggled to make himself heard above the voices of the project’s supporters, says the land is the site of a battle fought by the Khoi that forced Portuguese colonists out of the region in 1510, though the exact location of the battle is disputed by leading academics
Although the land is privately owned, Jenkins says his group hopes the building site and former golf course will be restored to its natural state.
Asked how those opposed to development would afford to buy and develop the private land, he said not everything should be viewed though the lens of capitalism.
There is “an idea that economics will buy everything in life”, he said. “Economics does not deal with the integrity and dignity of our ancestors”.
Jenkins said of those who had lost jobs: “It’s very unfortunate that what we see here are human shields, or people who are being deployed by the developer, to offer as a buffer against real restorative justice.”
Tania Kleinhans-Cedras, the secretary-general at the Institute for the Restoration of the Aborigines of SA, said the LPPT was the first group since democracy to acknowledge indigenous people and included them in the development, which will have a cultural centre, and garden and access to the private land as it contains a public park.
Plasterer Faiq Harun said that when the building was stopped by the court order, 750 workers were sent home.
“No-one can comprehend the misery,” he said. “These people they’ve been unemployed for years. And now there’s an opportunity for work. And most of them have dependents of up to 10, on average. And suddenly, when you give people hope, and then you take it from them, [there] is nothing more devastating than that.”
The extended delays are jeopardising the project and could leave the developer having to pay almost R400m in various penalties. As many as 5,000 jobs and R4bn earmarked for public road upgrades are also at stake.
Local and provincial authorities say cancelling the project will deter investment in Cape Town and stymie attempts to make the city a tech hub or the “Silicon Valley” of Africa.
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