Residents vow to fight Millview

Table View and Milnerton residents have vowed to stop the development of several three-and-four-storey flats and nine grouped houses planned for 21 Canary Crescent.

In 2022, they took to the streets to protest against the Millview development but now they say the City has ignored their appeals and concerns (“Civics protest over ‘monstrous’ development,” Tabletalk, August 10, 2022).

Last week, the City confirmed that the land-use applications clearing the way for development had been approved in the face of 384 objections.

Mayoral committee member for spatial planning and environment Eddie Andrews said the Municipal Planning Tribunal had passed the land-use applications at the end of last month subject to conditions set by the tribunal last year.

Several appeals had been lodged against the decision, but the Planning Appeals Advisory Panel had recommended they be dismissed, he said.

“The applications were found to meet the desirability criteria in Section 99 of the Municipal Planning By-law, and other related City policies and frameworks, thus, these were approved,” he said.

The land-use approvals are valid for five years.

The building plans had not yet been submitted and approved by the City, Mr Andrews said.

“The development cannot commence without the building plans being submitted to the City for consideration and approval.”

Residents said they would not give up without a fight to preserve what they say is endangered fynbos on the land, and they would demand that the 2.4 hectare plot be used for a school should have been built there.

There is a temporary school with eight classrooms on a piece of land next to the proposed development.

Sunridge Action Group member Des Palm is among those fighting the development.

The site had always been earmarked as “environmentally endangered” and should be kept that way, if a school was no longer part of the plan, he said.

Terri Oakes said she and other residents had been fighting to stop the development since the first application to rezone the land was submitted in 2014 and they had repeatedly warned the City that it would strain ageing roads, sewers and water pipes.

Greater Table View Action Forum planning portfolio head David Ayres said it was important that residents knew the history of the site as it had been “gifted“ to them for educational purposes.

“We ask the residents, do you think the City is acting in the best interest of its communities?”

The land was transferred by the national Department of Rural Development and Land Reform to the Flandorp Family Property Trust in order to settle a land-restitution claim in 2013.

The Flandorp family lost their properties in Goodwood, Parow and Elsies River during Apartheid’s forced removals (“Flak over Flandorp development," Tabletalk, July 24, 2020).

A resident, Blaine Richards, who moved to the area two years ago, said: “How are building plans for massive developments just being approved left right and centre, but I have been waiting for my plans for a granny flat to be approved since I moved here? Something is fishy.”

Plans submitted by the First Plan Town and Regional Planners’ Christene Havenga in 2014 referred to the housing development having its own sewage plant (“Housing development will have its own sewage plant,” Tabletalk, August 10, 2021), but Mr Andrews said the design of such a plant had not been assessed as part of the application and the owner would still need licences from other spheres of government to submit an application for the sewage plant.

Asked why the plans for the sewage plant were not included in the land-use applications passed by the Municipal Planning Tribunal, Ms Havenga said the matter was no longer in her hands and that project manager Francois Steenkamp was dealing with it.

Mr Steenkamp could not be reached before this edition went to print.

Tabletalk was unable to contact the Flandorp family for comment before publication. The numbers we have on our records for the Flandorp Family Property Trust, provided by a Millview Property sales document, no longer exist.