Chapter 7 Collaborative and cooperative governance mechanisms in Durban
7.3 The strategic thinking behind the vision of the Durban Aerotropolis
130 to singlehandedly make decisions that will affect the project. The Manager for Communications and Branding also noted that they consult with other key stakeholders (such as Durban City EDTEA and Dube TradePort) regarding anything that impacts on the development of the Durban Aerotropolis to make sure that everyone is on board and that ACSA is not just making decisions alone in terms of development and addressing challenges. Their hope is that they can run parallel with the project, in terms of their developments and their goals to support the province.
7.2.3.4 Trade and investment KZN
According to the Destination Marketing Manager of TIKZN (04/08/2016), the agency is the primary driver of foreign investment in KwaZulu-Natal and also the key facilitator in working with local businesses to get them export-ready and then assisting them in finding international markets for export. As such, in the development of any commercial international strategy, TIKZN becomes a key role player among the various drivers of economic development in the province.
The section above has highlighted the stakeholders from the various sectors that are working together in the Durban Aerotropolis.
131 and the freeway had also been erected in the midst of all that. When the old airport in the south could not expand and accommodate bigger aircraft, it became clear that the government had to make a decision to relocate so as to accommodate the evolution of aviation in the province.
After 1994, the KZN government looked further into the move and a decision was finally made to start developing the area in La Mercy, setting up an industrial development zone which would later be known as the Dube TradePort Corporation. The decision to then kick start the project of the relocation of the airport was affected in 2006 so that the province and the city could be ready for the 2010 World Cup.
According to the Programme Manager of the Aerotropolis Management Unit (18/05/2016), the decision to move the airport to La Mercy was inspired by the fact that the economy of KZN and of Durban was moving towards the north. He expanded on this, saying that
The significance of the north if you look at this whole N2 corridor attached to Richards Bay Provincial Government has got two major assets which is these two ports, Richards Bay being the busiest bulk port in Africa and they have got the biggest port terminal. This side where you have got the second busiest container terminal which is this one here in Durban and the fact that the development of businesses and the location of the whole commerce and light industries is moving towards Durban North, so it became necessary to relocate the relocation of the airport which was not something new it’s something that was muted by the apartheid government long time ago but it was never enacted.
The move to the north was apparently also inspired by the bigger and greater vision that the government foresaw given the amount of land that was available in the La Mercy area.
According to the CEO of TKZN (12/05/2016),
when the airport moved north the idea wasn’t just to move the airport, it was to develop also the land around the airport so that it becomes a new economic driver for the province and also enhances our position as the logistics capital of the country.
Following this grand realisation, ACSA and Dube TradePort put together a masterplan setting out what they were going to use the land surrounding the airport for on a very much smaller scale (Strategic Policy & Planning for the KZN Department of Transport, 01/06/2016). The government then took it upon itself to ask what could be further done, and that is how the proposal for development of an airport city came about:
Then as government we then said what else can we do now and that’s when as part of a team a few of us went overseas and visited a whole lot of case studies. We went
132 to something like 12 cities, six countries in a four week space and basically then consensus conceptualised the idea of what is an aerotropolis and that’s what then initiated the process in terms of saying this is what we want to do in that area so that’s basically what the basis of it was.
The vision of the Durban AerotropolisRegarding the vision of the Durban Aerotropolis, it was clear that the stakeholders were aiming at building a brand new city centred around an airport.
According to the Deputy Director of Policy and Planning at EDTEA (20/05/2016), Basically, to build a brand new city centred around the airport and build a city that can leverage off the airport just like as Durban was basically built around the seaport. If you think of Durban connecting regions, you know Durban has an international port it feeds the consumption of and the drive of Johannesburg and the Gauteng area, so you kind of thing to yourself well if Gauteng wasn’t around would Durban have grown as big as it did, you know there is a two way relationship between Gauteng and Durban. Now we really just looking at you know at connecting the airport, the same as Ekurhuleni well the municipality in Jo’burg.
Ekurhuleni is centred around O R Tambo which feeds a whole of areas, Pretoria, Germiston, Benoni, Springs, the whole area, yes.
For others, although the vision was clear about building a city around an airport, there was a shared sentiment that the Durban Aerotropolis should become a mechanism through which the country can craft a new trajectory of economic development. The Director of Research and Development at EDTEA (01/07/2016) underscored this argument by explaining that
we have to make sure that this project is one of the country’s big projects, you know the big catalytic projects, presidential projects it had to fit into that category.
He commented further that
There is that sense of understanding that we have an opportunity to develop a city around the airport. I think everybody understands that we have an opportunity to also model what the future development of the country, the province first and then the country.
The CEO of Dube TradePort (30/06/2016) noted that although there might be differences in views about the main vision of the project, for him personally, and Dube TradePort specifically, the vision was to develop a project that will be key in driving the next generation of economic development and infrastructure development in “the central core of the airport” as he put it:
So let’s say we take the first 10km radius, a lot of that will be Dube Trade Port stuff and our new land and the stuff that we are doing, well let’s say 5km radius. Then 10km you start needing to put in bulk infrastructure from the city, big sewage works, roads, rail, then you go to 20 and suddenly you’re touching Umhlanga,
133 Ballito, Ndwedwe, so it is almost to say we’ve got a Greenfield opportunity here.
Government owns a large portion of the land here, let’s coordinate our efforts and let’s accelerate good sustainable economic development in this area for good jobs.
While the CEO of Dube TradePort (30/06/2016) had a clear vision for the Durban Aerotropolis and shared this with the various other stakeholders in the project, he expressed his concern about how he, unlike everyone else, had to think more practically about these grand ideas, as he works in the TradePort. In essence, what he was saying was that he had to work on the project on a day-to-day basis, which in a way forces him to adopt a ‘taking it one step at a time’
mentality rather than thinking about the bigger picture of the 60-year masterplan of the Durban