Cape Town faces appeal over Equinix data-centre zoning

Planning Partners defended Cape Town’s approval for Equinix-linked data centres in a 91-page response reviewed by Daily Maverick on Nov. 5, escalating a zoning appeal near Cape Town International Airport.

The fight matters because Cape Town’s council passed a by-law amendment on June 26, 2026, effective Oct. 1, giving statutory certainty for multi-hundred-million-rand investments rather than a publicly described 280m² boundary correction.

Planning Partners is acting for King Air Industria, co-developed by Atterbury, and Equinix, Daily Maverick reported. Equinix’s role centres on a long-term commercial lease and infrastructure-funding arrangement, the report said.

Planning Partners said objectors misunderstand Item 136 of the Development Management Scheme, the municipal planning framework. Its position is that the current application subdivides, consolidates and rezones land to create Erf 180451, with an erf meaning a registered land parcel in South African property records.

The developer’s response said detailed questions on building design, cooling, noise, fuel storage and National Environmental Management Act triggers belong at later Site Development Plan and Building Plan stages. Nema triggers are environmental thresholds that can require assessment or authorisation under South African law.

Daniel Hartford, South African lead for UK legal advocacy non-profit Foxglove, told Daily Maverick that the response changed the public picture of the project. “When the audience was the City, the site was Equinix’s data centre. When the audience was journalists and the public, it was 280 square metres of nothing in particular.”

Foxglove and the Legal Resources Centre obtained the response through a Promotion of Access to Information Act request after the City decided to hear the appeal behind closed doors, Daily Maverick reported. The groups had challenged the municipal approval process.

The planning fight follows an October 2024 city approval for a first data-centre site, Erf 180444, under General Industry 1 zoning. General Industry 1 is a Cape Town municipal land-use category for industrial activity.

At that time, Cape Town’s Development Management Scheme did not define a data centre. Daily Maverick reported that the City treated such facilities as warehouses by interpreting digital data as stored goods.

Baker & McKenzie and senior counsel advised Equinix in 2025 that the warehouse interpretation may not withstand legal scrutiny, Daily Maverick reported. Equinix then told the City it would not proceed without explicit statutory certainty because of the multi-hundred-million-rand investment required.

Cape Town’s amended by-law defines a data centre as a building, dedicated space or group of buildings used to store computer systems and related telecommunications and storage components. It also adds data centres to the definitions of “warehouse” and “business premises”.

That change makes data centres a primary permitted right across General Industry 1 and Mixed Use 1 properties city-wide, Daily Maverick reported. A primary permitted right means the use is allowed under the zoning category without a separate rezoning or consent-use approval.