An unresolved 1999 appeal to the KwaZulu-Natal premier’s office by a local council opposed to the re-zoning of its land will further stall construction starting on the proposed R2,5-billion King Shaka International Airport at La Mercy, north of Durban. This could jeopardise its completion in time for the 2010 World Cup.
The objection was laid against a directive from the Town and Regional Planning Commission by residents of Mount Moreland, an area situated on the edge of the proposed airport site. They oppose the rezoning of what was largely agricultural land.
While the commission dismissed the objection, giving the go-ahead for the agricultural land to be rezoned for the construction of the airport, it also directed the council to ‘zone the whole of the Mount Moreland area to a special zone which will admit the use of ‘airport warehousing’â€.
The council subsequently lodged an appeal with the premier’s office, citing among other reasons ‘having to incur considerable costs in employing planning consultants, architects and the like to implement the directives†and submitting that it was not a legitimate expense to be borne by the council.
The appeal asserts that the ‘burdening of the [council] with expenditure of this nature is beyond [its] budgetary and financial constraintsâ€.
A high-placed source within the municipality confirmed this week that, almost eight years later, there had been no indication from Premier S’bu Ndebele’s office regarding the resolution of the appeal.
Ndebele pledged in September last year that construction of the airport and neighbouring Dube Tradeport would begin in March this year to ensure the completion of the airport by October 2009. The airport will be built, owned and operated by the Airports Company South Africa while development of the Dube Tradeport, estimated to cost around R3-billion, is being facilitated by Dube Tradeport, a section 21 company set up by the provincial government. The transport and trade hub is expected to take between 32 and 34 months to complete.
According to Gavin Benjamin, deputy head of development planning at the eThekwini Municipality, rezoning ‘if it is non-contentious, and there are no big issues, usually takes from six to nine months. But if there are issues around traffic congestion, EIAs [Environmental Impact Assessment reports] and public issues, rezoning can take anything from nine months to a year.â€
A series of other contentious issues is also likely to affect the rezoning process as well as the actual start of construction.
Next Monday, Grinaker-LTA’s legal challenge over the tender process for the construction contract of the airport will be heard in the Pietermaritzburg High Court. Grinaker-LTA led the Indiza Group Consortium’s tender for the contract and was shortlisted together with the Illembe Group Consortium headed by Group Five and Wilson Bailey, which was eventually announced as the preferred bidder.
‘We found the tender process to be flawed up to this point and are challenging the outcome,†said Dennis Gammie, financial director of Aveng, Grinaker-LTA’s parent company. It has been previously reported that Grinaker-LTA has alleged that details of its bid had been revealed to its rival.
Rohan Persad, chief executive of Dube Tradeport, said the company was unperturbed about the court challenge because of the ‘rigorous†tender process. According to Persad, the biggest concern was the process of compiling and collating EIA reports and their presentation to the public for comment.
Some reports have already been open to public scrutiny, but Persad said there were currently ’14 different specialists†at work. The EIA has to be approved by the department of environmental affairs before construction can begin.
Of major concern for conservationists is the future of the millions of barn swallows that roost at Mount Moreland during their yearly migration from European winters. Studies are ongoing into the impact of noise pollution and airplane flight patterns on their roosting.
Ted Vickers, of the Lake Victoria Conservancy, said he was ‘not trying to stop the development, but wanted the swallows to be recognised, and their roosts protected and maintainedâ€.
Persad said a ‘worst-case scenario would see the construction beginning in June this yearâ€.
Ndebele’s spokesperson, Jeff Hassan, said that as far as the premier’s office was concerned, construction was still scheduled to begin in March.