Legal appeal launched over site for Amazon Cape Town HQ

March 30, 2022 Siyabonga Mtangana

The Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust (LLPT) has filed an application for leave to appeal the recent judgment that interdicted construction of the R4.6-billion River Club redevelopment in Cape Town that will house US technology giant Amazon.com’s new Africa headquarters.

If the appeal is not granted, there could be serious harm that follows, the LLPT has warned: 6 000 direct and 19 000 indirect jobs will be lost (including the 750 construction workers who were told to go home when the ruling was delivered).

It will also be detrimental to the Cape Peninsula Khoi community and future generations will be deprived of the only feasible prospect of preserving their cultural heritage, including the establishment of a heritage, cultural and media centre in the redevelopment, which will be operated and managed by an entity the First Nations Collective.

The community will also lose significant socioeconomic benefits, including developer-subsidised housing as well as major upgrades to surrounding roads and parks and gardens that will be open to the public, the LLPT said in a statement.

Among its arguments, the trust said the court also failed to consider that by interdicting the River Club redevelopment, both it and the broader community would suffer irreversible harm.

The LLPT said neither applicant, the Observatory Civic Association and the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council, has a legitimate claim over the intangible heritage of the broader Two Rivers area, of which the River Club comprises about 5%.

Both parties were given a chance to submit their comments regarding the proposed redevelopment, the trust said. Their comments were considered by the relevant authorities, who approved the project.

The LLPT said it will again ask for an appearance in court to “evidence the injustice of allowing these applicants, who have no apparent standing in the Khoi and San community, to block this project and the many critical opportunities it will bring, including much-needed jobs”. – © 2022 NewsCentral Media