“We were never consulted” – Cape Town residents challenge Equinix data centre
Rezoning appeal has temporarily halted plans
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The Housing Assembly’s Kenneth Matlawe hosted a panel discussion about the impact of data centres with Mohammad Amir Anwar from the University of Edinburgh and Pitso Tsibolane and Timothy Carr from the University of Cape Town. Photo: Alice Scott
- About 70 activists and community representatives attended a panel discussion about the possible impact of a proposed hyperscale data centre in Cape Town.
- The application to rezone King Air Industria was approved by the Municipal Planning Tribunal on 14 July.
- The approval is temporarily halted as local activists and residents appeal it.
Bishop Lavis community leader Michael Hoffmeester lives less than three kilometres from the site of where a hyperscale data centre has been proposed for Cape Town.
He said he has been struggling to answer questions from the community about the data centres. The little information they have received about the facility, Hoffmeester said, has been technical and complex.
“We cannot understand them,” Hoffmeester said. “How can I explain to the community what we were told if I don’t even understand it?”
Hoffmeester joined about 70 activists and representatives from communities surrounding the proposed site at a meeting hosted by the Housing Assembly at the Central Methodist Church on Saturday.
Also in attendance were members of non-profit organisations such as Open Secrets and Foxglove, the Legal Resources Centre, the South African Human Rights Commission and Green Anglicans.
Communities surrounding the proposed data centre include the Barcelona informal settlement, Bishop Lavis, Gugulethu and KTC, where some residents still battle daily with unreliable access to water and electricity.
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.
Activists and residents lodged a formal appeal in August against the land use approval that will allow US technology company Equinix to build a data centre at King Air Industria. They 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, as well as emissions and noise.
The appeal has legally suspended the approval until the formal internal appeal process has been completed.
Hoffmeester told the meeting on Saturday that he and other Bishop Lavis residents were never consulted about the project. Hoffmeester suggested that the land for the project be used for housing or to create a recreational area for young people.
Pitso Tsibolane, a senior lecturer in information systems at UCT, said, “We just survived loadshedding … For over a decade, you and I had to battle through a full day without guaranteed electricity, and in some households, for days and weeks even. Suddenly, we have enough electricity to power all of these data centres.”
Some panellists challenged the suggestion that data centres would bring jobs to the surrounding communities. University of Edinburgh senior lecturer Mohammad Amir Anwar said that based on his research, he roughly estimated that the proposed Equinix facility would create only about 120 jobs directly at the construction phase and 40 once it is running.
Several activists raised concerns about the prioritisation of such a facility over housing.
The Housing Assembly’s Kashiefa Achmat said the lack of easy-to-understand information about the centre is concerning. She said they are campaigning for a moratorium on data centre development until there is a better understanding and commitment on how communities’ rights and concerns will be taken into account.
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Letters
Dear Editor
I read with interest the article on Cape Town residents challenging the Equinix data centre. We don’t need to guess what these facilities do. America has run this experiment for years.
In drought-stricken Texas, data centres consume 25 billion gallons of water annually. In Georgia, one guzzled 30 million gallons, leaving residents with weak pressure. In Oregon, Google used 355 million gallons, a quarter of a city’s supply.
They poison air with diesel generators. A UC Riverside study found health damages tripled in four years; exhaust is a known carcinogen.
They raise electricity bills: rates near US data centres rose over 30% since 2020.
They displace people: in Abilene, Texas, home values collapsed; in Louisiana, rent jumped from $250 to $1,495 before eviction.
Nearly half of US data centres sit in low-income communities of colour. The NAACP calls this environmental racism.
Equinix claims “dry-air cooling” uses “virtually no water.” This is misleading. Their application gave no concrete details. Dry cooling still consumes huge electricity, which requires water upstream. Equinix’s own 2024 report shows 4.18 billion litres consumed globally.
The Housing Assembly and Foxglove are right to demand a moratorium. We should not sacrifice our water for American tech profits.
No consultation. No transparency. No real jobs. Just extraction.
© 2026 GroundUp. This article is published under the GroundUp Republication Licence Version 1.0. Email [email protected] to request permission to republish.