Development of Gold Circle Stables property

On 31 July 2013 Cape Town City Council approved the rezoning of the Gold Circle Stables properties. The application was recommended by the SPELUM Committee (SPELUM: Spatial Planning, Environment and Land Use Management) on 15 May, and on 16 July MAYCO (the Mayoral Committee) recommended that SPELUM’s report be submitted to the Council for approval.

APPLICATION FOR REZONING OF ERVEN 8606, 12585, 12506, 8641, 10777 AND UNREGISTERED ERF 34195, MILNERTON TO SUBDIVISIONAL AREA.
RESOLVED that, subject to the insertion of conditions of approval requiring, that:
(i)	the Urban Design Framework be submitted to the Spatial Planning, Environment and Land Use Management Committee prior to approval;
(ii)	the Plan of Subdivision be advertised and submitted to the Spatial Planning, Environment and Land Use Management Committee prior to approval;
the application for the Rezoning of Erven 8606, 12585, 12506, 8641, 10777 and unregistered Erf 34195, Milnerton, from Stabling Purposes and Undetermined to Subdivisional area, in terms of Section 16 of the Land Use Planning Ordinance, No. 15 of 1985, be approved, subject to the conditions, as amended above, as set out in Annexure A attached to the report dated 14 February 2013.

Annexure A referred to in the Council decision above has the conditions recommended by the various departments in the City. The pdf file of Annexure A can be viewed here.

The next step would be the development of the Urban Design Framework, and after that the Plans for Subdivision must be submitted. The applicant has two years from 1 August 2013 to submit the first Plan for Subdivision of any portion of the property, if a plan has not been submitted by 31 July 2015 the application lapses and the whole process must start from the beginning again (the applicant can apply for an extension of the 2-year deadline, but valid reasons must be submitted).

The Council resolution ends the second phase of the application process. Below is an outline of the process and the history of this application over the last three years.

Application Process

The proposed mixed use development comprising office, business, retail, service industrial and residential land uses totalling approximately 17,67ha in extent has activities listed in terms of the regulations and is subject to basic assessment as prescribed.

An application of this nature consists of two phases. The first phase is to obtain environmental authorisation from the Western Cape Provincial Government in terms of the National Environmental Management Act, Act 107 of 1998 (NEMA).

The second phase is the application to the City of Cape Town for various approvals in terms of the Land Use Planning Ordinance, Ord 15 of 1985 (LUPO). These are the Removal of Restrictive Title Conditions, the Rezoning to Sub-divisional Area with a basket of developmental rights, and after these the Subdivision of the property.

Environmental Authorization phase

The consultants for Gold Circle started the first phase of the development application in 2009, this culminated in October 2010 with the submission of a Final Basic Assessment Report (BAR) to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEA&DP) for the environmental authorisation. RAMPOA and several other parties had previously commented on the draft BAR, but commented again on the Final BAR on 28 October 2010.

Environmental Authorisation was granted on 16 February 2011, but it appeared that many of our comments had not been taken into account, and we thus lodged an appeal on 6 April 2010. The appeal was not against the authorisation in principle, but because some of the conditions of approval were deemed to be inadequate.

The result was that some amendments to the Environmental Authorisation was made on 5 March 2012. These amendments do address our main concerns and go a long way to meeting our requirements. As with any decision of this nature, we are not 100% satisfied, but feel that we can solve any outstanding issues through direct communication with the developers and the relevant City departments.

This first phase of the application process is now complete and the decisions made with respect to this phase is final.

The relevant documents mentioned above can be accessed with the links in the column to the right

Land Use Planning phase

At the same time that the applicant launched the environmental authorisation process, they also applied to the City and Province (DEA&DP) for the Removal of Restrictive Title Conditions. In February 2010 advertisements were placed for Removal of Restrictions and for Rezoning to Sub-divisional Area – letters of notification were sent out to owners of neighbouring properties and other affected parties. Comments and objections were received from a number of people and organisations and the applicant was asked to respond to these.

In November 2011 DEA&DP notified the applicant that the Removal of Restrictions had been approved and requested submission of the original Title Deeds for endorsement. This was done and in April 2012 the final notification of this approval was published in the Provincial Gazette. The City is now waiting for the final letter of approval and the amended Title Deeds from Province.

The application for Rezoning to Sub-divisional Area with a basket of development rights as per a Proposed Conceptual Subdivision Plan is only now being processed after the formal notification of approval of Removal of Restrictions in the Provincial Gazette. The Planning Department will soon be able to submit their recommendations to the Spatial Planning Environmental and Land Use Management Committee (SPELUM) for the Rezoning of the Property to Sub-divisional Area. All objections and comments relating to this aspect of the application, together with the applicant’s responses, will be included in the submission to SPELUM.

Only after the rezoning has been approved by the City, can an application for subdivision of the property, accompanied by site development plans, be formally considered. In fact our information is that the owner of the property has not yet instructed the consultant handling the above applications to apply for subdivision or draw up site development plans. It is suspected that Gold Circle may sell the property with the Sub-divisional Area Plan and basket of rights in place and that new owners will then apply for subdivision. An application for subdivision of at least a portion of the land must be submitted within 2 years of the rezoning approval.

The City has committed itself to further consultation with affected parties when an application for subdivision and site development plans are submitted to them.

On 19 April 2012 we received an email from the City setting out the processes to date and the current state of the application. The email and the Conceptual Subdivision Plan submitted to the City can be accessed with the links in the column to the right.

What is RAMPOA doing?

RAMPOA has communicated our concerns about aspects of the proposals to the City’s Planning & Building Development Management Department, and our concerns have been noted. The RAMPOA chairperson was also invited to attend a meeting with our Councillor, the applicants and the City Planners in which all our concerns were again raised and discussed.

Both RAMPOA and the EMC have made recommendations to Planning and Building Development Management that the Conceptual Subdivision Plan be amended as follows:

Currently the plan indicates a stormwater swale and stormwater detention ponds down the centre of the proposed development. We propose that this stormwater detention system be moved to the western boundary of the property, i.e. adjoining the two portions of the nature reserve, Sandown Crescent and The Stableyard to form a buffer between the proposed precincts on the property and Royal Ascot. This will also be more acceptable environmentally than a swale down the centre of the property. This area could then be landscaped and provide public open space with walks and play parks similar to what we have in Royal Ascot.

The public open space joining the northern and southern portions of the nature reserve at Sandown Crescent is too small. The City’s Biodiversity Specialists have proposed that it should be increased from the proposed 0.23ha to approximately 0.80ha – the corridor should be 40m wide and the entrance areas north and south of Sandown Crescent should each be 60m wide.

Green: Stormwater swales & detention ponds as proposed on conceptual plan.

Dark blue: RAMPOA & EMC proposal for stormwater detention system and public open space.

Purple line: RAMPOA & EMC proposal for corridor between reserve sections – the proposed corridor on the plan is the thin black line under the dark blue section.

Since submitting our proposal to the City, it has been confirmed that both Environmental Resource Management and Stormwater & Roads Departments support our proposal to move the stormwater swale to the western boundary and to increase the size of the corridor between the northern and southern sections of the nature reserve.

One issue that is of major concern to RAMPOA is the matter of ensuring that our eastern boundary is secure when Gold Circle vacates the property. This issue is being discussed with the City officials, and they are looking at mechanisms to ensure that this boundary is adequately fenced and secured before the property is vacated. As the nature reserve is City property, they too have a vested interest in ensuring that this is done.

At a trustees meeting on 7 May, it was decided to appoint consultants to investigate the procedures followed by the applicant as there are allegations that these procedures may not have been correct as prescribed by the legislation. A town planner and attorney was appointed to go into this matter, and a letter was sent to the City Planning Department questioning the validity of the process as incorrect addresses were used to notify owners of neighbouring properties of the rezoning application.

The Planning Department has responded stating that they are investigating the integrity of the address database that was used for sending out the notices.

On 20 July 2012 the District Manager of Planning & Building Development Management emailed the consulting attorney as follows:

“Based on the City of Cape Town’s NOTIFICATION POLICY FOR LAND USE DEVELOPMENT APPLICATIONS as approved in August 2010 the rezoning of Erven 8606, 12585,12506,8641, 10777 and 34195, Milnerton also known as the Gold Circle development will be re-advertised in the press today (20 July 2012) and letters sent to the individual surrounding property owners per registered mail as more than 30 months since the first adverts would have lapsed by the time of decision-making.”

The full communication, dated 19 July 2012, and the revised ‘Indicative Conceptual Development Plan’ is in the Links column to the right.

There is only one substantial change from the original plan. The public open space connecting the northern and southern portions of the nature reserve has been enlarged from 0.23ha to 0.42ha, but still falls far short of the 0.80ha requested by the EMC and the City’s Environmental Resource Management Department. This means that the residential development has been reduced from 170 to 158 dwelling units.

RAMPOA appointed a town planner, Tommy Brummer, to formulate a response to the advertisement, his letter to Council can be viewed by clicking on the link in the right column

The local Planning office has prepared their report to the City’s SPELUM committee (SPELUM: Spatial Planning Environmental and Land Use Management); this takes into account all the submissions and objections, and the applicant’s response to the these. The report that will be submitted to SPELUM recommends that the application be approved, but with a number of conditions attached.

We have a copy of the report that was submitted without many of the attachments, click here to open the report (there is also a link in the right column). However, the recommendations and Annexure A, which contains the conditions of approval, are in this document.

The full report is also available – click here to download – but take note that it is a large file.

The report was submitted to SPELUM at their meeting on 15 May 2013 where submissions by RAMPOA and the applicant was made to the committee. SPELUM’s recommendation is that the application be approved with the conditions in Attachment A of the report submitted to them, but with two additional conditions. The SPELUM resolution reads as follows:

APPLICATION FOR REZONING OF ERVEN 8606, 12585, 12506, 8641, 10777 AND UNREGISTERED ERF 34195, MILNERTON TO SUBDIVISIONAL AREA.
RESOLVED
TO RECOMMEND that the Executive Mayor submits the subject matter as listed hereunder to Council for approval/refusal in terms of Section 56(1) of the Local Government: Municipal Structures Act, No. 117 of 1998:
1.	That subject to the insertion of conditions of approval requiring:
	1.1	that the Urban Design Framework be submitted to the Spatial Planning, Environment and Land Use Management Committee prior to approval, and
	1.2	that the Plan of Subdivision be advertised and submitted to the Spatial Planning, Environment and Land Use Management Committee prior to approval,
the application for the Rezoning of Erven 8606, 12585, 12506, 8641, 10777 and unregistered Erf 34195, Milnerton, from Stabling Purposes and Undetermined to Subdivisional area, in terms of Section 16 of the Land Use Planning Ordinance, No. 15 of 1985, be approved subject to the conditions, as amended above, as set out in Annexure “A” to the report dated 14 February 2013.