Milkwood City Project

The Milkwood City Project also known as Milkwood is a proposed development project which is situated in the north-west region of the City of Cape Town, in South Africa. Previously known as Wescape, this project is proposed to span 3,100 hectares (31 square kilometres). This project is going to be development by an urban company, ComminiTgrow is expected to feature around 200,000 houses, 400 educational institutions—including schools, crèches, and colleges, and also 370 public service facilities like libraries and clinics, and 15 sports complexes once completed.

The companies behind the Milkwood development state that it will be worth R140 billion and create 300 000 jobs over 20 years. The developer, communiTgrow, describes the Milkwood community development model as incorporating industry, technology, food security, infrastructure, waste processing, energy reduction and production in a holistic manner, minimizing environmental impact from urban growth. ‘Green lung’ public spaces will be integrated into residential nodes and community areas.

Location
The City of Cape Town’s Medium to Long-Term Growth Options Study indicates that there are only two major directions in which the urban build can grow; a corridor up the West Coast (Western Growth Corridor) and limited pockets of area northwards (Northern Growth Corridor).

Milkwood is located in the more suitable Western Growth Corridor, on land identified by the City’s Spatial Development Framework for future urban development, on 2,864 hectares of along the N7 National Highway.

History

Planning for Milkwood began in 2006 as a joint venture between developers, project managers and urban designers. Companies behind the development include AFRICA123,  Regen Africa (property developers) and communiTgrow (project facilitators) who enlisted the expertise of ARG Design (town planners and urban designers).

communiTgrow put forward the plan for Milkwood to deal with the demand for houses in Cape Town. Cape Town’s population is growing yearly. In 2001 it was 2,9 million, and by 2011 it had reached 3,7 million. There is already a backlog of homes and it is estimated that between 277,000 and 400,000 people are awaiting subsidized housing.

One of the plan’s supporters is reportedly the City of Cape Town's former mayor Patricia De Lille, with the Cape Times newspaper quoting De Lille as being “excited” about the R140 billion development. The City of Cape Town approved the application to extend the urban edge to accommodate Milkwood in December 2012.

Project Details
Milkwood plans to have 200,000 homes, housing around 800,000 people and aims to integrate all necessary public amenities. Milkwood developers have said that the project will provide all the bulk infrastructure required, including water, energy and waste services, and all internal roads. The city will feature around 400 education facilities, 30 health facilities, and 15 sports complexes. There will be shops, factories, parks and public open spaces.

The Milkwood City project at a glance:


 * 200,000 local jobs created
 * 4 million sqm of lettable commercial space
 * Connected to Cape Town CBD and Atlantis by MyCiti Bus
 * Railway station allocated
 * Ecologically and friendly Green Urban Building
 * Walkable urban design
 * Education (early childhood to tertiary)
 * Health and community facilities
 * Over 600 public open spaces
 * ZAR 260 billion total construction costs
 * Unlocks FDI (Foreign Direct Investment)

Approach
Milkwood, a new Regenerative SMARTERu-Urban city is predicated on a high-level Expanded Value Creation Chain Model that initially creates a labour-based economy resulting from construction and infrastructure development.

This leads to a new economy that commences with the building of homes for construction workers, managers, infrastructure personnel, experts in SMART building technologies and their families.

Subsequently followed by all required educational and healthcare facilities, creating additional employment and demand for additional homes that gives rise to a multitude of industries, establishing a diverse service economy including agri/aquaculture, resulting in a vibrant thriving economy to attract other residents.

Timeline
According to the proposal, the development would involve 10 phases over the next 20 years with building beginning in 2015 and completed around 2035.

Homes
A range of unit types include affordable homes for those households who fall into the GAP market (the gap housing market consists of households who typically earn too much to qualify for government-subsidized housing, yet too little to participate in the current private property market). The other half will be placed on the open market, aimed at households with income levels above the subsidy eligibility bands.

Infrastructure
Milkwood Development has built the provision of bulk services into its economic model.

The private urban development company, Regen Africa as part of AFRICA123, will develop all the bulk services required, including infrastructure for water, energy, waste and all internal roads.

Transport
The plan for Milkwood includes the promotion of walkable neighbourhoods, pedestrian-oriented pathways, non-motorized transport routes, and an internal public transport system. The Integrated Rapid Transit Bus Service which will link Cape Town to Atlantis will also run through the site proposed for Milkwood.

Milkwood developers have also put forward that the railway line that runs through Cape Town’s Western Growth Corridor to Atlantis will service Milkwood once it is converted to a commuter service, although this is yet to be confirmed.

The proposed road networks that will service Milkwood include the R27 to Saldhana, along which the IRT runs to Atlantis, the M12 connecting Milnerton to Atlantis, and the N7 connecting internationally up the west coast of Africa. In an east-west direction, the northern arm of the R300 will pass over the center of the Milkwood site bringing in traffic from the N1 and Metro-South-East. It will connect with the M12 in a diamond intersection. The R304 from Philadelphia cuts through the northern part of the site and will eventually link across to the R27.

Environmental Impact
The Milkwood developers state that the development is being designed to be responsive to climate change by maximizing the reuse of water, utilizing solar power and reducing energy consumption through conscious Urban Design and the use of cutting-edge technologies. Milkwood plans also state that it aims to reduce waste in landfill by up to 90%.

The Milkwood plans claim that over 20% of the total land area in the development will be given to greening in the form of the central Metropolitan Open Space System (MOSS) which links the biodiversity corridors of the city and runs through the valley system of the site and consists of urban agriculture, forests, civic landscape or bioswales.

Finance
In June 2023, it was announced that Africa123, the developer of Milkwood, was under consideration to receive funding from the African Union and a unit of Temasek Holdings, Singapore.

"We like the program," said Kossi Toulassi, head of the industrialization at the African Union Development Agency, in an interview. It’s "bringing together education, health and employment together under one shop," he said.

"We expect that there are going to be 3 billion people in the continent by 2063 and 150 million families that will need housing, decent housing," said Gita Goven, chairwoman of Africa123. "The ability to continue tacking onto those cities and trying to revive and extend the city has exhausted itself."

Criticism
Milkwood has faced criticism from residents of the nearby town of Melkbosstrand as well as some prominent academics.

Residents of Melkbosstrand
Residents of Melkbosstrand have objected to the impact Milkwood might have on the suburb near the proposed site. David and Cathy Butler, who live on a smallholding adjacent to where Milkwood is to be built, said in a submission to the City of Cape Town that “This development will degenerate into nothing more than a low-cost housing, informal settlement slum, which will impact heavily on the value of the property”.

communiTgrow developers have argued against this characterization of the development and stated in reply to Butler’s complaint that they were “speculating on the essence of what Milkwood will be”.

Urban Edge
Milkwood has been criticized due to its location outside of the Urban Edge of the City of Cape Town. Milkwood has applied for the urban edge to be shifted to include the proposed development site. Milkwood developers have argued that there is not enough land closer to the inner city to accommodate the proposed development and that where sufficient vacant land does exist, it is owned by private development companies like Milnerton Estates, who have already earmarked it for developments that will not provide suitable homes for lower-income households.

Critics put forward that one of the purposes of this hypothetical border is to protect agricultural land beyond it. Professor Vanessa Watson, of the University of Cape Town’s School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics, stated that “Given the long-term loss of agricultural land and growing issues of food insecurity, we should be doing everything we can to protect productive agricultural land”. Watson stated that “A 2010 City of Cape Town study showed that even at current low densities there is enough land within the urban edge to accommodate growth until 2021”.

Milkwood developers have stated that the land, on which the development is located, has an arid and exhausted soil system, and it is no longer productive as farmland.

Nancy Odendaal, senior lecturer in city and regional planning at the University of Cape Town stated that the idea of a delineated urban edge for Cape Town is important because it is the most sustainable option and will be better served by transport infrastructure. Because of this, it makes more sense to house people in existing urban areas by filling up vacant land before developing the city outwards.

Distance from Cape Town
The location of Milkwood has also been questioned. The site is located 25 kilometers from the Central Business District (CBD) of the City of Cape Town, and critics put forward that this distance will locate people away from jobs in the city, and residents will be faced with high transport costs.

Milkwood developers claim that, much like the towns of Bellville, Somerset West and Muizenberg, the Milkwood development will not depend on the CBD to satisfy the needs of residents. Other commentators have argued that integration of the city is not only about distance, and that Milkwood would support a more efficient public transport system.

Koeberg Nuclear Power Station
As is already the case with parts of Melkbosstrand, Blouberg and Atlantis, the Milkwood development would be within the 5 km to 16 km Urgent Protective Action Planning Zone of Koeberg Nuclear Power Station and concerns have been raised about the speed at which an evacuation could take place in case of an emergency.

ComminiTgrow has said it is “fully aware” that a nuclear regulatory evacuation model and assessment would be required before development rights could be granted and that it would provide a suitable evacuation plan and that the relevant plans and guidelines are being factored into the spatial and movement design of Milkwood.