Civil society activists have lodged a formal appeal against a land use approval that will allow US technology company Equinix to build a hyperscale data centre at King Air Industria in Cape Town, reports GroundUp.

The application for rezoning, subdivision, consolidation and amendment of conditions, which paves the way for one, possibly two, data centres, was approved by the Municipal Planning Tribunal on 14 July.

The Housing Assembly and technology justice organisation Foxglove, represented by the Legal Resources Centre, say the application should have been rejected because of inadequate information about the data centre’s impact on surrounding communities, in particular on electricity and water resources.

The activists say the tribunal had wrongly treated the matter as a simple rezoning application.

The tribunal’s decision created a new ‘data centre’ category of land use. Equinix says it operates more than 280 data centres in 36 countries.

The objectors say there were ‘critical information gaps’ in the application and should the appeal succeed, any fresh application must be decided on complete information with meaningful engagement with communities.

In their appeal, they say the issue goes far beyond the tribunal’s approval of the application, and speaks to the City of Cape Town persistently failing to meet its constitutional imperatives to protect, promote and advance the rights of its residents.

One reason the tribunal cited for approval was ‘positive economic impact’ through job creation and support of ‘downstream industries’.

But the activists say there was no report to back this up. They say the application did not deal with issues of water, emissions, electricity, air pollution, noise and did not include plans for the buildings. They note they only obtained Equinix’s response to their objection through an access to information request, days before the hearing.

In a media statement yesterday, they said the appeal comes after the same organisations, together with Open Secrets, Research + Action and Planetary AI Collective, issued a joint report to the Human Rights Commission calling for national rules for the data centre sector, including mandatory disclosure of every data centre’s water and electricity use.

Equinix can make submissions in the appeal process. 

GroundUp has struggled to reach Equinix for comment. Deputy Mayor Eddie Andrews, who is Mayco member for spatial planning and environment, said the matter is currently subject to an appeal process.

Full GroundUp report