- Cape Town's V&A Waterfront Project Adaptive Re-use as a Foundation for Sustainable Urban Renewal   331 kb by    Van Zyl, Pieter | pietersvanzyl@gmail.com    Short Outline An overview of the V&A Waterfront Project in Cape Town, South Africa, describing how the new residential, commercial and leisure uses have been developed through adaptive re-use of harbour buildings and retaining the working harbour elements. An innovative “Package of Plans Process” facilitated the urban regeneration success story. Abstract Some of the world’s most innovative real estate developments have taken place at urban waterfronts. From Boston, Baltimore, Vancouver and Toronto in North America, to Cardiff, London, Rotterdam and Barcelona in Europe, and Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Singapore and Osaka, waterfronts worldwide have become retail, leisure and entertainment destinations. Successful waterfront projects have re-established the rich cultural and historic links between land and water in many port and river cities across the globe. Nearly thirty years ago, those who lobbied for what is today Cape Town's Victoria and Alfred Waterfront were regarded as idealistic dreamers. When the V&A Waterfront Company was formed and work started in 1989, most Capetonians said 'it will never happen'. Today, the project receives over 22 million visitors annually and commercially it has been one of South Africa’s biggest real estate success stories. But the story of the V&A Waterfront goes back more than 150 years. In September 1860, HRH Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s second son, tipped the first load of stone to start construction of the breakwater for Cape Town's harbour. The Alfred Basin, the first of a number of basins providing shelter for shipping in Cape Town, was completed ten years later. It was almost immediately too small for the increasing fleets and growing size of the ships and a second basin, the Victoria Basin, was completed 35 years later and served as the gateway to Southern Africa until the 1940's. Nobody anticipated that the Port of Cape Town would lose its gateway status with the growth of air transport, nor did anybody anticipate that the City’s reclaimed Foreshore would, in effect, separate the historic City from the sea. Although the Victoria and Alfred Basins later became the centre for Cape Town’s fishing industry and smaller scale ship repair activities, the area was relatively isolated as a result of customs fences and became neglected over the next fifty years. In November 1988, Victoria and Alfred Waterfront (Pty) Ltd (V&AW) was established to redevelop the historic docklands around Victoria and Alfred Basins as a mixed-use area with a focus on retail, tourism and residential development, with the continued operation of a working harbour. Significantly, the V&A Waterfront is located between two of the world's greatest urban icons — Table Mountain and Robben Island. It is easily accessible from most parts of metropolitan Cape Town and is within twenty minutes’ drive from Cape Town International Airport. PROGRAMME AND PROGRESS After a year of public consultation and negotiations to obtain Cape Town City Council’s planning approval, redevelopment started at the end of 1989 with the installation of new services infrastructure. This was a victory for the citizens of Cape Town, who had campaigned vigorously in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s to reverse the isolation of the City from its waterside as a result of land reclamation, railway lines and freeway construction. The use of an innovative planning and land use management process (known as the “Package of Plans Process”) has been used by the V&AW and the Cape Town City Council to facilitate a flexible approach to the development programme. The result has been an urban regeneration success story of international stature. The charter agreement between the V&AW and the City of Cape Town in 1989 started with a simple goal: “To make the V&A Waterfront a very special place for all Capetonians”. Some 24 years after the adoption of this important developmental and civic goal, the V&A Waterfront project has succeeded admirably in achieving it in a sustained manner. Key elements in the V&AW’s overall strategic development concept was the adaptive re-use of harbour sheds and warehouses and the retention of the working elements of the harbour, which provide vitality and an exciting backdrop to new development. These working harbour features include the harbour tugs, the pilot and fishing boats, and shipping traffic to the synchrolift and dry dock. Authenticity has been a key objective in the replanning and design of the area and the restored fabric provides a rich maritime experience for residents, local visitors and international tourists. The V&A Waterfront project has been very successful in transforming the historic, under-utilised part of the Port of Cape Town into the City’s premier tourist, retail and entertainment destination. It has now become Africa’s most visited destination, with 22 million visits annually. The V&AW has also succeeded in changing the loss-making historic part of the Port of Cape Town into a profitable property investment project with an enviable international reputation and profile Keywords Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2013: Frontiers of Planning - Evolving and declining models of city planning practice   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper