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100 signatures reached
To: Geordin Hill-Lewis, The Executive Mayor of the City of Cape Town
Challenging Equinix's Data Center Development in Cape Town
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We demand that the City of Cape Town PUT A STOP on all proposed data centre development applications and conduct public consultations with all affected communities in their jurisdiction, until these questions have been answered!
We demand that the City of Cape Town inform the public of the following:
- How do they plan to mitigate the harmful impact of data centres on our communities?
- What is their plan for social and affordable housing as desirable developments?
- What is their plan for giving people equitable and affordable access to water and electricity?
- Finally, what is the plan to ensure that we have a clean and safe environment in the City?
Why is this important?
We have the right to be properly informed about developments in our backyard, and the right to say NO!
We, the residents of the Western Cape, have not been informed about how our lives, livelihoods, and human rights will be impacted by the Equinix hyperscale data centre being proposed in the King Air Industria site and all other future data centre developments in the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape.
We, the residents of the Western Cape, have not been informed about how our lives, livelihoods, and human rights will be impacted by the Equinix hyperscale data centre being proposed in the King Air Industria site and all other future data centre developments in the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape.
From Housing Assembly and Foxglove
(Objectors to the Erf 178931 rezoning and amendment to basket of rights application made to the Municipal Planning Tribunal)
The Housing Assembly’s members are communities who live in informal settlements, backyard dwellings, temporary relocation areas, rental accommodation, and inadequately constructed RDP housing. Some members even live in Gugulethu right across the road from the proposed Equinix data centre. Our communities already do not have access to water and electricity as we can barely afford to pay the current electricity tariffs and can only access clean water from one tap within about a 100sqm radius. Why do we have to wait for affordable housing, water and electricity while the City of Cape Town approves developments that will not benefit our communities? How can we allow a development like this to be built in our backyard without being informed about how it will affect our livelihoods?
Foxglove is our partner in this challenge, given their experience gained by investigating the environmental, social and governance implications of hyperscale data centre development across the globe and now in South Africa.
Sign this petition if you support our cause and would like to put pressure on the City to adhere to our demands.