Heritage Cases

The proposed development is situated on a single plot of land at the corner of Grimsby Road and South Coast Road. The current use is aligned to the general area which is characterised by factories, motor related businesses, warehouses and other industrial facilities. However, the proposed development is predicted to be a more viable and expanded use of the site. The site area is surrounded by approximately 12000 households, with one car per household. The socio-economic study of the development, for the subject site confirms this prediction. Furthermore, the location of site is preferred for this type of development as it is centrally located within the Mobeni market. In terms of the land use, the proposed layout better utilises the site since it has been designed to optimally occupy the site and host more than only one business, as is the current use. This implies more generation of income and also provision of more employment opportunities. Whilst this location is surrounded by approximately 10 existing fuel stations, the rationale hinges on the corner location of the site which enables it to capture traffic from three directions, viz: • From the N2 entering the Mobeni area, i.e. along Grimsby Road, • From the North East direction feeding from Clairwood, • From the South West direction feeding from the Merebank area towards Clairwood. The traffic is expected to be captured from the three directions without causing excessive traffic impacts, since the site will be accessed via two driveways and provides adequate parking as well. According to the socio-economic study, the construction phase will create 70 employment opportunities. It is likely that of the people employed in the construction phase, majority will be unskilled. The fact that there exists in the surrounding communities a large pool of unskilled, unemployed labour, it can be anticipated that the majority of this 75% may be made up of local residents. Though the skilled labour may be sourced from further afield, there is enough unemployed skilled labour living in surrounding communities to meet the construction needs of the development. Thus, it can be assumed that a large portion of the direct jobs created (70) in the construction phase will be filled by members of the local community. The operational phase is similarly projected to create 85 employment opportunities. Lastly, the development is expected to improve the visual appeal of what may be regarded as a landmark corner of the area. This will generally improve the value of properties in close proximity.