Cape Town's upmarket suburb of Constantia is poised to get a new shopping centre and two traffic circles.

Officials have recommended that development of the R250-million shopping centre should go ahead on land at the centre of a restitution battle. One of the traffic circles - at the junction of Ladies Mile and Spaanschemat River roads - will have a new road into the centre's 427-bay parking area.

The Solomon families, who won the restitution battle, farmed the 14581m² from 1902 until their removal in 1967 under the Group Areas Act. They left an 11-room Victorian-style house, a seven-room colonial-style house, eight family houses and workers' cottages and outbuildings.

Now councillors are poised to give the go-ahead for a three-storey shopping centre, anchored by a Shoprite-Checkers supermarket, tomorrow.

Fifty-four objections to the development were sent to the City of Cape Town, claiming it would harm the suburb's character, compromise traffic safety and pay little respect to the site's history.

But the Solomon families said their plan was "socially just and empowering and in line with [our] constitutional entitlement to restitution of land-use rights".

"The families will celebrate their memories and heritage in the redevelopment of their land."

The leasing of the shopping centre, which borders the M3, will cross-subsidise the families' residential development on the other side of the road.

The second new traffic circle the City of Cape Town plans for Constantia will replace traffic lights at the junction of Ladies Mile and Huxley roads.

source: The Times