The SCA has ruled that a full Bench of the High Court must hear the appeal against the lower court’s ban on the construction of the R4.6bn Amazon office development in Observatory, Cape Town.

The development plans to turn a privately-owned golf course into an office block with tech giant Amazon as the anchor tenant, with millions also earmarked for road upgrades, R38m for the rehabilitation of the Black and Liesbeek rivers and R55m centre for heritage centre.

It also includes a public park, cycling trails and low-cost housing, notes Business Day.

But the development was opposed by the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin indigenous council and the Observatory Civic Association, a group of residents led by Professor Leslie London, which persuaded Deputy Judge President Patricia Goliath to grant an interdict halting construction.

The groups argued that the laying of concrete and the construction of tall buildings would permanently damage ‘a scared flood plain’ that has great cultural and spiritual significance to the Khoi and San communities.

Goliath ruled that the rights of indigenous people could not be trumped by job creation and ordered fresh consultations.

‘The development of substantial economic infrastructural and public benefits can never override the fundamental rights of First Nations peoples,’ she ruled, and denied the developers and the local and provincial government the right to appeal.

The developer, Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust (LLPT), and the Cape Town metro and provincial authorities and a First Nations collective who supported the development, then approached the SCA, arguing it serves no-one’s interest to stop the development while retaining a private golf course, degraded land, a tarmac parking lot and canalised rivers.

While the judgment has been under appeal, construction has continued.

Full Business Day report