Ian Fife

Western Cape public works MEC Robin Carlisle is about to launch a radical project to start developing each of the hundreds of properties owned by the province. The aim is to provide a huge boost for economic development and social transformation, and the provincial cabinet has adopted a policy to exploit hundreds of pieces of land that Carlisle describes as a “treasure chest”.

The ruling Democratic Alliance (DA) wants to put all public land under the management of a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) that will integrate their design and launch a mega property development process. It will first deal with 275 provincial properties in Cape Town. Most are the locations for schools and hospitals, but there will be scores that are ripe for development, including underused land at some schools and hospitals. They include the historic Somerset Hospital building that was controversially put out to tender by then ANC premier Ebrahim Rasool and later withdrawn by his successor, Lynne Brown.

The SPV will sell long leases to developers and take back land when the leases end, to redesign and resell it, thus providing government with a permanent source of income and a means of progressively improving urban areas.

“One of our aims is to create mixed use developments with the smallest practical development tranches possible, so that emerging developers can participate,” says Carlisle. “A pillar of the policy is to create the maximum points of contact between rich and poor.”

Carlisle says the design team will look with new eyes at the properties, including premises the province uses. He aims to move government from rented offices and into modernised properties it owns, to reduce costs. This could include building a new tower block in the existing provincial precinct off Wale Street. “We want to get more efficient government out of this,” he says.

Carlisle (aged 67 and in his first government position after 51 years in opposition politics) says he wants to leave a successful programme as his legacy. But he has a maximum of five years in which to get things done before the next provincial election. Can the DA make an impact in the time available?

It is likely to face furious opposition on principle from the ANC and its aligned organisations.

Brown, now the ANC leader in the provincial legislature, fudged comment on the DA policy when the FM sent it to her, saying she could comment only when it was presented to the legislature. However, her policy also aimed at using government properties for social transformation, in contrast to that of Rasool, who was constantly being accused of rampant enrichment of cronies.

Carlisle’s provincial bureaucracy will be another obstacle, more because of its lack of experience in such developments than any political alignment.

In practical terms, the project will concentrate on the Cape Town central city area for the next five years. The provincial government is headquartered there and the groundwork for integrated development has already been done by the Cape Town Partnership (CTP).

The CTP is headed by Andrew Boraine, who was Cape Town’s city manager under the first ANC-controlled council. The provincial leadership can of course also count on a friendly DA-led city council, which recently launched a joint development strategy with the CTP.

Boraine and Carlisle have already met to discuss the project. “The province’s property has been a key missing element in our strategy,” says Boraine. “[The province has] an immense portfolio in the city, and participation with us is hugely important. It’s been a key missing element. We had a frustrating time trying to get provincial co-operation. There are many underused city buildings and spaces that are owned by the province.

“If the province can complement the good work being done by [rail agency] Prasa and [property specialist] Intersite with redevelopment of the Cape Town station or the city’s Green Point Urban Park, we will have some winning combinations.”

Carlisle has also decided to grasp the nettle of District Six, the suburb where inhabitants were forced out and their homes demolished in the 1960s and 1970s. New development of District Six has been held up for 15 years by disagreement among what Carlisle describes as the suburb’s gatekeepers. Developing it “will be an essential part of providing housing for people near work opportunities”, he says.

The DA government might need CTP more than CTP’s projects need provincial property. Boraine, his deputy CEO Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana and their team have the skills to produce some short-term victories for Carlisle.

He has consulted some of the province’s leading city, urban design and architectural leaders, most of whom think the plan can deliver results. But two of them, Stellenbosch-based urban designer Dennis Moss and cities expert Neil Fraser, who recently moved from Johannesburg to the Cape, warn that all the people affected by the project must support it if it is to work.

“It’s difficult for ordinary people to visualise such a project,” says Moss. “The province must provide some kind of plan that people can rally behind. It works best when they see a role for themselves and it is perceived as fair and equitable.

“The sites of development must show something immediately, so that the people can see action. It could just be a line of trees or a fountain. These could be small projects, but they must be visible and clearly in support of a bigger vision that people are enthusiastic about.”

Another thorny issue is inclusionary development that mixes rich and poor households. National government policy is that at least 30% of any new residential development must include affordable housing, but most developers say it can’t work. The DA will have to adopt the policy if it is to avoid being accused of running a project for the rich.

Fraser says inclusionary development can work. “I’ve seen it in the middle of London, and New York is working on a huge development that combines rich and poor households,” he says. Carlisle says he would like to go further by adding inclusionary business premises that will allow emerging businesses, crafters and tradespeople to work close to home and to their customers.

Asked if he hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew, Carlisle says the Cape Town Central City project will be “under way and irreversible by 2014” at the very least. He also hopes to be extending it to District Six, Woodstock, Bellville and the N1 corridor. And he hopes that some provincial municipalities might start using the Central City project as a blueprint for projects of their own.

Source: Financial Mail