In fact, one of the biggest challenges facing the City of Joburg Property Company, which manages and develops land throughout the metro area, is supplying stock to the more than 200 investors and developers clamouring for inner-city buildings to rehabilitate.

To help meet demand, the city is also planning to release more land for private development.

The company's report for the first quarter of the 2005-06 financial year, released to the city council at its last sitting this month, shows the city is rejuvenating buildings at a faster rate than it did the previous quarter.

The number of buildings being renovated or upgraded in the inner city and surrounding suburbs has risen to 94 this quarter from 73 at the end of the last financial year.

However, the inner city still suffers an image problem and government offers incentives to would-be investors. Developers receive a 20% tax reduction on all income earned in the first five years after a building has been refurbished.

The company also said it would release council land around Johannesburg valued at R150m for private development. This is expected to generate a construction spend of about R10bn by the end of 2008-09.

The upgrading of buildings is held back by processes such as expropriation, purchase, debt write-off and transfer. These can take up to two years to complete.

Renovation of the 94 buildings will cost the city more than R300m. It will also have to write off about R250m owed in rates and service fees. However, the city expects to collect about R6m a month in rates after the renovations.

Of the 94 buildings, 53 have already been awarded to approved investors and transfer to the new owners of 13 buildings has been completed. The company said that the time between acquisition and handover had improved due to an improved process.

The company came under fire this year from human rights groups concerned about evictions of poor people from derelict buildings, some of which had been expropriated.

People were living in squalid conditions because of a lack of affordable accommodation, exposing them to abuse by landlords, activists said.

The company's answer has been the refurbishment of Hillbrow's Europa Hotel as a pilot transitional housing project, with 70 units. The hotel opened in October this year.

Unable to find a suitable investor, the property company, the Gauteng housing department and Johannesburg's housing department financed the R6m upgrade themselves.