CAPE TOWN — Residents of Green Point, the site of a new stadium for the Soccer World Cup in 2010, are to press ahead with their objections to rezoning the area, in spite of a threat by government to take the semifinal match away from the city if the issue goes to court.

David Polovin, chairman of the Green Point Common Association, said at the weekend that his organisation had lodged a “substantive” appeal against the development and if a decision went against them and they did not agree with the reasons, they would take it on review to the high court. Polovin said he believed the association’s objection was based on “solid ground” and that the public participation process around the Green Point development had been flawed.

The application could mean that Cape Town and Western Cape would lose out on the R2,5bn development.

Sport and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile and his provincial counterparts decided last week to recommend that the cabinet should take a formal decision that all stadiums had to be finished by the end of 2009 “and that if residents of Green Point take the matter to court, another venue be found outside the province of the Western Cape”.

One implication of this was that practice venues being planned elsewhere in Cape Town would not be built either. “I’m hoping that it doesn’t reach that stage, because it’s going to affect lots of things,” said Whitey Jacobs, Western Cape MEC for sport.

So far, Tasneem Essop, the Western Cape MEC for tourism and development, had received 19 objections to the rezoning of the Green Point development, which will see the relocation of the nine-hole Metropolitan golf course on the common, with the new stadium being built on part of the existing golf course.

Mayor Helen Zille warned during a report-back meeting on the stadium last week that if the matter went to court, the semi-final match and all its benefits would probably move to Johannesburg and a major investment opportunity would be lost.

Simon Grindrod, the Independent Democrats’ leader in the city council, has blamed Zille for the “imminent loss” of the stadium, saying the stadium might now be in serious jeopardy.

Polovin said while the association was in favour of 2010, the future of Cape Town should also lie in embracing public open spaces and Green Point was the only sizeable remaining public open space in the city.