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Cape Tonians have until Monday, June 24 to comment on a plan to consolidate and rezone two residential plots in Rondebosch to establish an Old Meul Restaurant.

Tommy Brummer Town Planners have submitted the proposal to the City of Cape Town, which sets out the plan to rezone 1 Canigou Avenue and 1 Glebe Road from a single residential (SR1) to a local business (LB2) for the franchised restaurant and a shop.

Part of the application calls for the properties to incorporate a 15-car parking bay.

Hayley Geary, a project planner from Tommy Brummer Town Planners, told The Southern Suburbs Tatler that a heritage practitioner recommended that the developers ‘retain and preserve the “very historically sensitive building” on the property at 1 Glebe Road’, which will be the site for the restaurant and shop. The existing building has a Grade 3B heritage rating.

According to the plan, the plot at 1 Canigou Avenue will be utilised for parking.

Geary believes that the Old Meul is the perfect franchise to operate a restaurant in this location as it has “demonstrated a track record of operating from heritage buildings, and the proposed hours of operation – from 7am to 8pm on Monday to Friday or from 7am to 6pm from Monday to Sunday – were sensitive to the surrounding residential environment.”

 

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According to her, the developer tried to preserve the property’s mature trees while still using the footprint of the old structure, which led to the parking deviation.

“There is more than adequate street parking in front of the property to account for the very minor parking departure of three bays.”

The The Southern Suburb Tatler interviewed some of the residents in the area, with one saying that ‘once the area was zoned for business it would be hard to rezone it as residential. There had only ever been homes in Glebe Road and it would be best to keep it that way’.

Mayoral committee member for spatial planning and environment Eddie Andrews said anyone who wishes to comment or object to the application can do so via the land use objection form found on the city’s website, and email it to comments_objections.southern@capetown.gov.za.

I suppose there are worse franchises than a bakery and deli shop opening up in a residential neighbourhood. My local Ou Meul in Oranjezicht (old Carlucci’s building) seems to mix lekker with the locals, despite charging R20 for a small can of Coke in their shop.

[source:southernsuburbstattler]