Cape Town Mayor Faces Critical Decision on US Data Centre Appeal

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis must decide within 90 days whether to approve a US tech company’s data centre application at King Air Industria. The proposed facility would require grid power equivalent to 250,000 households.

The Municipal Planning Tribunal previously granted land use rights for Equinix’s hyperscale data centres at King Air Industria, prompting an appeal by the Housing Assembly and Foxglove through the Legal Resource Centre.

This decision marks the first instance in South Africa where a municipality must resolve such a large-scale data centre appeal.

Multiple data centre operators, such as the Vantage group, are planning expansions or new facilities across South Africa.