[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Warwick Junction mall crit

[Patrick Bond]

The Mercury
Warwick Junction

May 22, 2009 Edition 1

Does Durban really need another shopping mall at Warwick Junction? And 
how will this project affect the lives of hundreds of informal traders 
operating in this hive of activity?

These are the questions faced by the city in its difficult quest to 
reorganise and clean up the planning mess left by years of apartheid 
neglect. Now one of the country's biggest commuter hubs, the Warwick 
Triangle, was developed in years gone past, in part, to keep black 
commuters out of the CBD. Today commuter and trading patterns have 
become so intertwined and entrenched that any effort to upgrade 
infrastructure is bound to help some and to hurt others - to displace 
traders and hit revenues.

Unhappiness over the present road, rank and trading upgrades was 
abundantly clear in a debate hosted by the Democracy Development 
Programme at the Durban University of Technology's city campus this 
week. Matters became so heated that some of the 600 informal traders and 
others ended up singing and chanting in protest.

Their most potent criticism of the plan was that traders were not 
properly consulted about a development they say could ruin their 
livelihood. They fear the new 30 000-square-metre mall is designed to 
redirect foot traffic away from their stalls and that it will leave them 
with no space to trade.

The city needs to address numerous issues and questions to allay the 
suspicions of those affected by the changes. One primary concern must be 
to explain how the tender process was handled - and whether this was 
done in a sufficiently open and even-handed manner.

In the end, the planned developments will no doubt create an 
organisation and structure that will most likely to improve the area and 
enhance business in the long term, and this will be for the benefit of 
commuters and consumers. However, in the short term, there are many 
concerns that need to be handled sensibly and sensitively.