Foreshore? For sure! De Lille says massive Cape Town project is on again

A week after Cape Town scrapped plans to develop the Foreshore‚ a team of city council officials has been assembled to get the multi-billion rand project back on track.

City manager Lungelo Mbandazayo said his decision to cancel the council’s “request for proposals” followed challenges to its decision in February to name Mitchell du Plessis Associates as the preferred bidder for the project.

But opening Thursday’s council meeting‚ mayor Patricia de Lille said: “The city manager has agreed that the request for proposals will be redrafted to address concerns raised during the appeal process and it will then be reissued.

“A project team has already been assembled to ensure that this can happen as soon as possible.”

Mitchell du Plessis Associates was one of six bidders whose proposals were evaluated by the City of Cape Town‚ and Mbandazayo said several appeals and objections “contested the application of the evaluation criteria as set out in the request for proposals documentation”.

He added: “Having received legal advice‚ the city concluded that a lack of sufficient clarity in the request for proposals documentation rendered the evaluation criteria vague.

“Procurement processes must be compliant with the rule of law. There must be no doubt about the integrity of these processes and‚ as such‚ I have decided to cancel the request for proposals.

“Furthermore‚ the economic outlook for the country has become significantly weaker since the issuing of the request for proposals two years ago. This change‚ together with the additional burdens that the city‚ its ratepayers‚ and residents are facing at the moment‚ cannot be ignored.”

De Lille did not refer to the economy on Thursday‚ saying 6ha under and between the Foreshore freeways were still “sterilised” by the uncertain future of the unfinished freeways‚ presented an opportunity to relieve traffic congestion and could be used for affordable housing.

“It is disappointing that our first attempt did not work out. However‚ the cancellation of the request for proposals does not mean that the project is cancelled‚” she said.

“Providing inclusive spaces to be funded by partnerships with private sponsors and leveraging city assets and optimisation of these assets to drive economic benefits for the city is in line with the DA’s manifesto for Cape Town.

“This project‚ along with the release of the 11 parcels of city-owned land in Woodstock‚ Salt River and the city centre for affordable housing‚ remains crucial to achieving integration and reversing apartheid spatial planning.”

Deputy mayor Ian Neilson‚ who is one of De Lille’s adversaries in the divided City of Cape Town DA caucus‚ entered the Foreshore fray at the weekend.

“After an appeal by one of the bidders‚ the city manager determined that the criteria for evaluation [were] so poorly defined that even the members of the bid evaluation committee could not agree on how to evaluate the tender‚” he said‚ adding that this was how procurement processes “are opened to corruption”.

He added: “The good news is that the city’s systems and people are robust enough that the deviations from process were identified and were driven into the open‚ where they are being dealt with.”

Mitchell du Plessis Associates Jedd Grimbeek told TimesLIVE that Neilson’s statement implied that the company was implicated in wrongdoing.

“The insinuation is misplaced‚ given that MDA won its preferred bidder status despite certain city officials’ reported persistent bias towards one of the other bids — which was reported in the media at the time‚” he said.

Grimbeek admitted the company’s team initially thought there was no “viable solution” for the Foreshore based on criteria in the request for proposals.

“However‚ after much deliberation‚ and having looked at all options‚ including tunnelling‚ we identified a unique opportunity to achieve sellable, developable bulk [property]‚ with relatively minimal infrastructure costs and the least disruption to the city economy and existing transport system.

“We met all the criteria of the request for proposals and were announced as the winner of stage one. This confirmed our team’s winning formula to identify a solid solution to address the congestion‚ affordable accommodation and provide foreign direct investment in the order of R20-billion for the benefit of the city and all Capetonians.”

The company’s winning proposal included the completion of unfinished sections of freeway‚ 3‚200 market-related residential units and at least 450 affordable homes.

There would have been 11 new tower blocks of up to 143m with views of the mountain‚ sea‚ and harbour.

The costs of the development were estimated at R8.3-billion at 2017 prices‚ and construction was expected to begin in 2020 and take a decade.