CANE - Coalition Against Nuclear Energy South Africa

The farm Duynefontein, on which Koeberg Nuclear Power station is built, was not rezoned when the power station was built and retains its rural zoning.Now Eskom has applied to the City of Cape Town to rezone the land to “regularise” the land use for the power station and other facilities on the property.The application is for the rezoning of the land on which the nuclear power plant is built from rural to noxious industrial, of the offices and visitors’ centre to commercial, and of other areas to general industrial.Martin Hutton-Squire, of MLH Architects and Planners, the consultants who have been appointed by Eskom to handle the rezoning application, said no power stations in South Africa were on land that had been rezoned for that purpose.”All the power stations are on farmlands, because under the old legislation zoning applied only to urban areas. You had major developments in the rural areas - mines or power stations - that were built on farmland without rezoning,” he said.In the former Cape Province, the Town Planning Ordinance, promulgated in the 1930s, was the legislation that laid out zoning requirements, but did not deal with land outside the urban perimeter.This was replaced with the Land Use Planning Ordinance (Lupo) in 1985, which did apply to land use changes outside the urban edge. However, Koeberg came on line in 1984 before Lupo came into effect.In August 2006, the Western Cape government instructed Eskom to rectify the rezoning.The public can have a look at the application at Milpark Building, corner Koeberg Road and Ixia Street, Milnerton, on weekdays between 8am and 2.30pm. Comments on the application must be submitted by November 17. For further information, e-mail jack.gelb@capetown.gov.za or telephone 021 550 1098.Source: http://www.thestar.co.za/

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