Tech development has come up against resource and housing scarcity in Cape Town, where the city’s municipal planning tribunal recently approved a land-use application by King David Country Club for two new data centres. It’s a precursor to development on 120,000m² of land in the airport industrial area, owned by the country club, where multinational company Equinix is planning a 174 megavolt-ampere facility.
But the decision is fiercely contested by the Housing Assembly, an organisation that works with communities in working-class areas across Cape Town, and UK nonprofit Foxglove, represented by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC).
The problem, they say, is that the costs haven’t been quantified — there is insufficient detail for the sizeable development — so it’s unclear how the centres will affect surrounding communities. There’s also the issue of land scarcity and service delivery. There’s also the issue of land scarcity and service delivery.
“While hundreds of thousands of families in Cape Town remain trapped in unsafe and overcrowded conditions and in informal settlements, waiting for decades to access land and housing, new commercial developments continue to be prioritised over people’s basic needs,” says the Housing Assembly’s Kashiefa Achmat.
“We cannot accept a system where land is allocated for profit while people are left without homes, clean water and electricity. The city must choose to put people before profit and ensure that land-use decisions meaningfully respond to the housing emergency facing Cape Town. Another data centre, placing huge strain on the city’s limited energy and water infrastructure, is not a priority for the landless people of Cape Town.”
Globally, there’s been a push for the expansion of data facilities since the start of the AI boom in the early 2020s, so it’s no great surprise that they’ve come to South Africa’s shores. By the LRC’s estimates, there are already 56 in the country, though none is yet of the scale to pose a serious threat to water and electricity resources.
Around the world, data centres have elicited pushback. Last year Amsterdam barred new data centres or expansions in the city until at least 2030. Residents of Monterey Park, California, voted in June to permanently ban data centres. Earlier this year, a legal case brought by Foxglove forced the UK government to make a U-turn on its plans to force through construction of a new hyperscale data centre without proper consideration of its impact on the environment.
The issue speaks to the tension between development and externalised costs.
As Eileen Carter of the South African Human Rights Commission tells the FM: “We’ve been closely monitoring the digital infrastructure boom. The main concerns are water and energy usage. We are absolutely for development and for investment. We just need to look at whether we are comfortable from a regulatory framework, and on implementation, that these new technologies do not adversely affect the rights of communities in the future.”
On the development side of the equation, King David Country Club says in its application that the land will accommodate “critical digital infrastructure that will have a metropolitan significance”.
It argues: “This type of infrastructure is a vital part of the digital ecosystem that allows for the digital industry to thrive and flourish, with concomitant benefits for Cape Town and the Western Cape. The proposal does not affect any substantive planning, environment or community issue.”
It claims the data centres will benefit the economy of the city and the Western Cape by providing critical digital infrastructure. “This will have a positive impact in terms of employment opportunities during both construction and operational phases. The provision of this type of infrastructure provides the foundation for the associated digital-related industries to thrive.”
As for electricity use, Equinix claims it is committed to achieving 100% renewable energy coverage across its operations by 2030.
But others are sceptical, and not just of long-term job prospects. LRC regional director Sherylle Dass says Cape Town has a constitutional and moral obligation to prioritise access to land, housing and basic services.
“The rights of the community far outweigh the rights of a potential development, and it’s unclear whether it will benefit South Africans,” she tells the FM.
The tribunal, she adds, “has a constitutional imperative to consider the wider socioeconomic impacts of resource-intensive developments and land-use applications that prioritise foreign-owned tech corporations’ commercial interests over the pressing needs of the communities they serve.”
Final approval pending
Of the critical information gaps listed by organisations opposing the centres, the specific lack of detail on water demands is particularly troubling.
According to news site GroundUp, LRC attorney Kimal Harvey told the tribunal his organisation estimates that data centres using traditional cooling methods require about 25.5-million litres of water a year for every 1MW of electricity needed. The 174MW demand for the Cape Town centres, enough to power 130,000 homes, would need about 4.4-billion litres of water a year.
Actual water demand for the proposed centres will be determined only upon submission of Equinix’s site development plan (SDP). But Equinix has already said that its data centres will utilise dry air-based cooling systems, dramatically reducing the need for water, Daily Maverick reports.
“Following approval of the SDP, the necessary municipal water meter applications will be processed at a later stage in accordance with City of Cape Town requirements,” says the application.
The city itself is more tight-lipped on the issue. When asked if it is concerned about the potential water and energy use of the data centres, Eddie Andrews, deputy mayor and member of the committee for spatial planning & environment, says: “The city is not at liberty to provide further comment on the merits or content of this matter while this [application] process is still under way.”
The design of the proposed data centres has also not yet been finalised. It is expected that, due to the likely size and configuration of the site, they will need to comply with the official general industry development rules, local and national guidelines that control how factories and workspaces are built and run.
Which is to say it’s not all a done deal yet. Andrews says the application for the amendment of conditions for approval, and for rezoning, subdivision and consolidation of land, has been approved subject to conditions — including that an SDP be submitted for approval.
The objectors, he says, will be provided with the opportunity to appeal the decision of the planning tribunal — which the FM understands the LRC intends to do. If an appeal is received, the applicant for the development will be allowed to comment on it. Then the matter will go to the appeals authority for a final decision.
“If the approval is not appealed and the development is to proceed, the developer would still be required to obtain further approvals, such as the submission to the city of an SDP, during which further information such as the technical infrastructure will be addressed. This plan will need to be supported by all relevant departments before being finalised,” Andrews tells the FM.
Achmat, however, is critical about what she says is a lack of transparency in the process so far. In her view, the city needs to engage more with the affected communities. “They need to put everything on the table and tell us what the risk is,” she says. “In the long run, these things will affect communities.”