In 1998 the City of Cape Town issued proposal calls for the redevelopment of the Sea Point Pavilion site. The development then consisted of a derelict building and run-down swimming pool complex. The area was underutilised, crime ridden and an eyesore. The proposal was awarded to On Track Developments CC (later (Pty) Ltd) for the development of an extensive hotel and retail (shopping mall) on either side of the swimming pool. The process was flawed from the start. First, the City erroneously issued the proposal call on the assumption that the Council could grant its consent to the use of the Public Open Space for the redevelopment of the Sea Point Pavilionsite. When a well known Town Planner pointed this out to the City, the City hastily applied for rezoning and environmental approval for the project. Both the rezoning application and the environmental impact assessments drew in excess of 1000 objections each.

Secondly, in the light of the serious public objections to the proposed development, both the then Cape Town mayor Ms Nomaindia Mfeketo and the national Minister of Environmental Affairs Valli Moosa in February 2004 publicly proclaimed that the project was dead. Three and a half years on, in a shock late development, the Provincial Minister of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, Ms Tasneem Essop, over-ruled the thousands of objections to the project and granted conditional environmental approval to the project on August 8th, 2007. SEAFA is concerned that there are irregularities with the process in terms of which the project was granted environmental approval and will oppose the project to the end. At present, the project has not been granted rezoning approval.