DEFENCE DARREN OLIVIER
YSTERPLAAT:
WHEN SOCIAL AND DEFENCE INTERESTS
COLLIDE
It’s election season in South Africa again as the country prepares to vote in local government polls, which means that most political parties are either making grandiose promises or accusing their opponents of heinous failures. Sometimes some of it might even be true.
I
T’S IN THIS CONTEXT that there have been renewed calls to shut down Air Force Base Ysterplaat and use the land for low-cost housing, along with two other military bases in Cape Town, Wingfield and Youngsfield. While it’s an idea that has been raised a number of times over the years, both by politicians and civil society organisations, this year it has become a main point of contention and differentiation between the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Cape Town and the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure. On the face of it, it’s not the most unreasonable idea. Ysterplaat, Wingfield, and Youngsfield are ideally located, the latter two are mostly unused, and it might be possible to fit tens of thousands of houses on all three sites depending on how densely they’re built. Ysterplaat alone may accommodate up to 18,000 houses, and its location in Milnerton means it’s close to most jobs in the city, making it quite attractive for
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FlightCom: November 2021
those looking to improve both the housing supply and reduce unequal spatial development. However, none of the plans and proposals put forward by any of the politicians, ministers, or NGOs take into account the military value of Ysterplaat in particular, or care about the impact on military capabilities, or have a viable plan for who will cover the costs of emptying and rehabilitating the sites. All assume that the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) will simply absorb the cost of relocating its units at the three bases elsewhere, as well as any associated rehabilitation. For reasons I’ll explain, that’s simply not realistic. AFB Ysterplaat’s existence dates from 1917, when Maitland Aerodrome was tentatively established with a single building and grass runway. By the mid 1920s it was in regular use by both the SA Air Force, which used it as one of the stops in its Diamond Mail Service, and Union Airways before it moved its operations to Wingfield in 1931.
