Location of development applications

Academics, regional planners and policy makers agree about the important role that small towns play in the local development of a region, through the services that these towns provide to their umland. Van der Merwe et al. (2004) state that the structure, role and development function in small towns are strongly influenced by regional and local conditions, such as natural resource endowment, population

density, market accessibility, political/economic structures, distribution of income and purchasing power. Recalling that these applications strictly refer to extra-urban locations, the question is then how location (in terms of the nearest town) determines the nature of local applications for land use conversion.

Table 3.1 illustrates that most of the applications applied for hospitality and agricultural construction related developments, contributing to more than half of all the applications.

Table 3.1 Relationship between development function intensity and metropolitan shadow influence

(Row %) Regional location

Development

function Metropolitan Stellenbosch Boland Northern-Boland

Breede Valley

Breede

River-East Hex River Row total (n) Total (%) Bulk services 6.7 26.7 23.3 13.3 6.7 23.3 0.0 30 7.2

On the other hand least of the applications were for communication and commercial related developments, contributing jointly to less than 3% of all the applications. It is evident that most of the applications applied for a change of agricultural land use in the Stellenbosch region, contributing to about one third of all the applications while Boland and Breede River East are almost conjointly second contributing both to about one fifth of all the applications. This observation seems to confirm the suspected metropolitan shadow effect – i.e. more conversions closer to Cape Town and in a more metro environment.

That begs the question whether these general distribution patterns hold between the various development functions amongst the different regions within the study area? More than one quarter of all the bulk service applications were in the Stellenbosch region, with just less than one quarter each in the Boland and Breede River-East regions – demonstrating the development vibrancy in the more urbanised realms. This development dominance in the more developed regions are also somewhat reflected in the commercial applications, with about a third located in Breede River East and just less than a fifth in Stellenbosch, contributing to half of all the applications. The mass of residential applications therefore not surprisingly hailed from these three dominant regions as well, with the Stellenbosch region contributing to almost one third of the total.

The metropolitan shadow effect also plays a significant role in the location of residential applications, resulting in more than three quarters of the applications being developed in the more urbanised regions namely the Metropolitan, Stellenbosch and the Boland, with about a third emanating from Stellenbosch. While resort applications were dominated by the Boland region, this category was rather small in number (only twelve in all). Nevertheless, some surprising prominence was attained in the less developed areas such as Northern-Boland and Breede River-East. The number of resort applications situated in Stellenbosch, Boland and Breede River-East attests to a combination of vacant agricultural land and marketability of such products close to the city to support this type of development (Sandwith et al. 2006). The development dominance are also reflected in the communication applications, with more than three quarters of the applications located collectively in Stellenbosch and Breed River East.

Taking this point further, of all the large number of hospitality applications, nearly one third was located in the Stellenbosch region and just more than a quarter in the Breede River-East region showing where the two hubs of new tourism development is probably forming. Most of the hospitality applications were from the more agriculturally developed regions, because they possess existing infrastructure (large numbers of abandoned labourer cottages) which are generally converted into accommodation units and provide scenic agricultural landscapes to compliment the stay for their city guests (Redford 2005).

This pattern of dominance is also echoed by just more than one third of all the agricultural construction applications also coming from the Stellenbosch region – just more than those in the Boland region.

These two regions together contribute more than half of all the agricultural construction change applications, signifying a capital intensive and high-density development dynamic in the rural areas on the metropolitan fringe. Although less so in terms of agricultural cultivation applications, these regions

still dominate in that class as well, with Breede River-East in some contention. More significantly, most agriculture related applications came from the dominant and economically viable viticultural regions (Stellenbosch, Boland and Breede River-East) as they are undertaking viticulture related developments in the form of wine cellars, storage sheds, cellar expansion to accommodate boutique wine makers and the cultivation of undeveloped land for the expansion of vineyards (Pascual &

Perrings 2007; DoA 2008; SAWIS 2008).

As is to be expected from these more remote rural areas, most of the nature conservation applications were from the outlying Northern-Boland and Breede River-East regions. Yet, and contrary to expectation, half of the nature conservation applications were from the dominant viticulture regions with their viticulture dominance. But then this trend can mainly be ascribed to the development of modern sustainability initiatives such as the Biodiversity in Wine Initiative (BWI) and programmes such as LandCare Areawide Planning to mitigate or offset the ecological impact of the viticulture industry (Sandwith et al. 2005).

The regional patterns of dominance are ably demonstrated in Figure 3.1, which displays the number of applications at ever greater distance from Cape Town.

Figure 3.1 The metropolitan shadow influence on the number of applications per region

The metropolitan shadow influence on the locality of land use change applications is clearly shown in the numeric dominance in applications of the two regions closest to the metropole. The Breede River-East region which are the sixth furthest region from the metropole breaks the pattern and signifies the importance of Worcester as secondary city  its status confirmed by Van der Merwe et al. (2004).

Incidentally, the reason for the Metropolitan region being the second lowest contributor to land conversion is because of the dearth in developable land there  land in the metropolitan fringe had already been developed prior to the 1998 study period due to urban expansion.

In conclusion, it can be stated that viticulture plays a pivotal role in the intensification of land use, as galvaniser of economic growth which subsequently also stimulate development in the less developed areas (DoA 1996: vi). Closeness to the metropole remains significant in the increase of land use change applications because of development stimulus that the metropolitan region provides in the form of purchasing power, market accessibility and closeness of service centres (Drozd & Johnson 2004;

Paterson & Boyle 2002). The closer a region is aligned with these driving factors the greater is the potential for development. Clearly, as Hendy (1998) argues, the viticulture industry and distance from the metropolitan region as well as the factors of location, distance to services, amenities, vistas, natural environment and surrounding development are what influence the intensification of land use