TIME’S up for Virginia Airport. Built in 1959, and just a stone’s throw from the city centre, it has served the city well over the years. But its location has become problematic. Situated on a prime piece of land, between the M4 highway and the beach, the airport is holding up development north of the city. Sad as it may be, the iconic airport has to move from its current site and relocate elsewhere.
Cities are always growing and, as they get bigger and bigger, they need more and more land. An airport close to the city is a hindrance to the growth of this urban sprawl. It is for this reason that airports are often situated some distance from the cities. Take the case of Durban International Airport. It was moved from Reunion to La Mercy, some distance away, and renamed King Shaka International Airport.
When Virginia Airport was built in 1959 for light aircraft, no one foresaw that one day it would stand in the way of the growth of the city. Now it’s about to suffer the same fate as Durban International Airport.
There has been much opposition to relocating Virginia Airport. But the decision to move the airport hasn’t been a bolt from the blue. The municipality, which owns the land on which the airport is built, has been mulling over redeveloping the 30-hectare site for the past 10 years and made its intentions very clear to the public and the airport’s tenants. Its economy has been severely impacted by the pandemic and it needs to increase its revenue base. The plans entail a “mixed-use catalytic project” for upmarket housing, a hotel and tourist facilities.
Anything to uplift the city and make it more attractive to the tourist market should be welcomed. The tenants have already been given eviction notices and now occupy the site on a month-to-month lease basis. They cannot claim to be the aggrieved party, pushed off the site by a greedy, inconsiderate landlord. They had ample time to relocate and cannot now throw up their hands in despair and cry foul.
But whereto for the tenants? Some of them have been at Virginia Airport so long that the thought of “moving house” has never entered their minds. Is there any ANC-run municipality that has received a clean audit? If a little thing like orange bags became such a messy, corrupt deal, enriching the elite, what will happen when the R9 billion Virginia Airport redevelopment project takes off? Will it be grounded like “Go Durban”?
T MARKANDAN | Kloof.
Daily News