The Proposed Expansion of Existing Chicken Houses on Erf 179 of the Farm Vastfontein 271 JR, Pretoria North Rural

The applicant plans to increase the capacity of the existing chicken house from 4750 to 10 000 chickens per house. The three proposed chicken houses will add to the three existing ones (shown as six houses, three orange houses and three green proposed ones in Figure 2 above) will hold 10 000 chickens per house, resulting in 60 000 chickens in the proposed houses.
On completion the six chicken houses will accommodate a total of 60 000 chickens. The proposed project area covers approximately 2.8 ha (as indicated in the yellow polygon in Figure 2, however only 1.5ha space will be reserved for 9 buildings).
The new houses will be similar to the existing chicken house, with dimensions of 1200m² each (which is 20m X 60m dimension per house). The spacing between the houses will be 30 m. There won’t be any clearance of present vegetation during the construction phase as the natural vegetation has already been disturbed by crops production of the previous farm owner. The existing chicken house is located on already disturbed area of approximately ± 86 403m² of the entire Erf 179 of the Farm Vastfontein 271 JR. The total footprint of the proposed chicken facility will be approximately 2ha ≈ (equivalent to 20 000m² of ± 86 403m² Erf 179.

The proposed development is as follows:
 6 X Chicken Hosting Houses of 1200m² each;
 6 X feeding drums per houses of 20m² each;
 1 X chicks hosting house of 250m²;
 1 X bio-security gate on the entrance;
 1 X Eggs farm shop of approximately 292m²; and
 1X office combined with workshop for repairing work equipment’s (of ≈ 180m² in size).

Access to the chicken houses will be restricted and monitored to ensure effective bio-security management is carried out. The existing operation was not listed in terms of NEMA EIA Regulation until the proposed expansion and proposed additional housing. The water supply to the facility is through an existing borehole on the site. However, there is an existing historical water allocation schematic of the whole farm which is not used by the applicant.


Province(s): Gauteng