Over thirteen months, Cape Town’s Municipal Planning Tribunal ruled on 1,328 land-use and development cases. Not one was recorded as an explicit departure from city planners’ recommendations. The pattern surfaced in a fight over two data centres proposed near Cape Town International Airport, where objectors warned of a 174-megawatt draw on the grid and 4.4 billion litres of water a year, in communities that already struggle to pay municipal bills. Daily Maverick’s Kevin Bloom’s reporting explains what the numbers show, how the city defends them, why the city says the tribunal occasionally disagrees, and why the tribunal’s required independence – set out in national law – is now in question.
Reporting by: Kevin Bloom
Filmed by: Joel Seboa
Edited by: Anda Tolibadi
Produced by: Emilie Gambade
Creative input by: Malibongwe Tyilo
Sub-edited by: Ian Wolstenholme
For Daily Maverick’s full report on this issue, please see the link here.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-03-zero-deviations-the-record-of-cape-towns-planning-tribunal-in-1328-rulings/
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-24-testing-the-teeth-of-cts-planning-tribunal-penalties-objections-and-refusals-in-1328-rulings/
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Draft chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
00:54 – The Data Centre Application
02:43 – 1,328 Cases, Zero Recorded Deviations
03:43 – The City’s Response
04:57 – A Mother’s Objection
06:26 – Term Limits Removed
07:46 – An Open Question
