Application to stop expansion of CTICC dismissed by court
No evidence found that decision to award tender should be reviewed
WORK on the expansion of the Cape Town International Convention Centre is on track again after the Western Cape High Court dismissed an application that could have caused significant delays, at an estimated R28 million, to the project pending a full review of the project’s architectural tender.
Julie-May Ellingson, chief executive of the CTICC, said: “We are pleased with the ruling, firstly because it affirms the CTICC board’s decision to proceed with the architectural appointment. And importantly, now we can get on with the work which will ultimately generate much-needed economic growth and job creation in Cape Town and the Western Cape.”
GAPP Architects and Urban Designers and Stefan Antoni Olmesdahl Truen Architects lodged an application in December last year for an order that would prevent several companies, known as the CTICC 2 Architectural Association, from completing the final stages of the project.
But the application was brought more than two years after the CTICC 2 architectural contract was awarded in February 2012.
Acting Judge Boet Smit found that the applicants should have launched their application within the prescribed 180 days, and that there was no evidence suggesting that the decision to award the tender to the CTICC 2 Architectural Association should be reviewed at this late stage. The application was therefore dismissed with costs.
However, another matter dealing with the closing of a public road to create a loading yard for the CTICC is still under dispute.
An appeal by Steve Lukey, a former consultant on the construction of the CTICC, and Tobias Lochner Architects, against a mayoral committee decision to approve the expropriation of servitudes on erven 246 and 247, was supposed to be heard at a recent planning appeals committee meeting. But the item was referred back for legal opinion.
Lukey had earlier contacted the city’s planning department to say he had not been invited to make a representation at the meeting, and that he would have to call for a full commission of inquiry into the matter.
In an e-mail, Lukey said: “I place on record that I have never been contacted by anyone in respect of my appeal being heard, which I am led to believe is on an agenda today and is perhaps already being dealt with, without any notification or opportunity to participate.”
The matter has been held over until the next meeting in April.
According to the report that would have formed part of the appeal, the CTICC 2 will be constructed on portions of the two erven that are owned by the city. The area, previously used as a public road, will be closed off to serve as a marshalling yard for deliveries to the CTICC.
The city’s property department noted in its submission that Lukey had not provided evidence or compelling arguments that would prevent the expropriation from taking place.
But in its appeal, Tobias Lochner Architects said the processes that informed coun- cil’s decision were defective.
The appellants argued in their submission that the city had already blocked off the road and construction had started at the time of their objection. It was also alleged that the city had approved building plans on these two erven, as well as erf 245, before the removal of restrictive conditions.
“It therefore follows that the building plans are invalid and the city’s and related parties consent is in conflict with a restrictive condition and therefore is of no force and effect,” said Lochner.
The African Christian Democratic Party objected to the servitudes last year, saying that the city’s transport directorate would first need to agree that the public road was no longer needed.
“No one, including full council, can build a 30-metre high development across a road, even if the road is still on plan, without the zoning scheme and the Spatial Development Plan being changed first,” said chief whip Grant Haskin in a statement then. Haskin warned then that the proposal would block pedestrian movement.
‘NOW WE CAN GET ON WITH THE WORK WHICH WILL ULTIMATELY GENERATE MUCH-NEEDED ECONOMIC GROWTH’