100-seater eatery ‘will downgrade tourist asset’

UCT economics professor Anthony Black has weighed in on the controversy surrounding the proposed 100-seater restaurant planned to be built on a Noordhoek farm at the start of Chapman’s Peak Drive, and has said it would not be a job creator.

Instead, it would downgrade the tourism assets of the South Peninsula.

Black, who was asked to comment on the development proposal, wrote in his submission that the applicant claimed the restaurant would create 36 new jobs. If this were true, it would be an important benefit.

“However, assuming that 36 jobs are created in the proposed new facility, new job creation in the restaurant sector of the area would at best be minimal. This is because there is no reason that total restaurant spend in the area will increase as a result of the new proposed facility.

“There would simply be a redistribution of existing expenditure from existing (and planned) restaurants to the new facility with a concomitant (small) loss of jobs in the numerous restaurants, both in the Noordhoek Valley and in the surrounding area,” Black said in his submission.

While the area needed development to create job opportunities, it was an environmentally sensitive area and a “major tourist centrepiece”. “The South Peninsula is one the City of Cape Town’s

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The 100-seater restaurant, if built in this spot opposite the Noordhoek Common, would have a significant negative impact on this sense of place

major centres of scenic and recreational tourism and is a critical component of Cape Town as a tourism brand. More than a million visitors pass through this route every year. It is not a commercial node tourism asset like the V&A Waterfront… Careful planning is essential to sustainable development in this region.”

Black said the driver of tourism in the region was a “sense of place”. The 100seater restaurant, if built in this spot opposite the Noordhoek Common, would have a significant negative impact on this sense of place.

Apart from many existing restaurants in Noordhoek, a large shopping centre was being built at Sun Valley, just 5km away. This would create jobs in an “appropriate, properly designated commercial node. Also, the redevelopment of the Serina Mine Site about a kilometre up Chapman’s Peak already includes an approved 100-seat restaurant”.

The adjacent Noordhoek Common was used throughout summer by local and international film shoots because of the limited urban development.

The city council’s spatial planning and land use management (Spelum) portfolio committee visited the site in March and recommended that the development application be refused.

It said it was not in keeping with the rural setting and it would exacerbate traffic congestion at the bottom of Chapman’s Peak Drive.

There were 80 objections to the development.

Nevertheless, the mayoral committee overturned the committee’s decision and approved the 100-seater restaurant.

The matter is to be decided by a full council.

Asked when the decision would be made, spokeswoman Hayley van der Woude said she would find out and respond today. The city would also respond to the comments made by Black.