SA Affordable Housing July / August 2018 // Issue: 71 | Page 26

FEATURES
Dealing with apartheid
spatial planning
The democratic government inherited apartheid’s legacy of spatial
planning which placed poor communities away from economic, social
and educational opportunities.
By Ntsako Khosa
A
ccording to research foundation, South African
Cities Network, apartheid spatial design produced
inefficient cities that suffer from sprawl and spatially
entrenched segregation.
The National Development Plan recognises this and
states that ‘new spatial arrangements could fundamentally
transform job and livelihood prospects for the poor’.
Karishma Busgeeth, manager for monitoring, evaluation
and knowledge management at the Housing Development
Agency (HDA) says that transformation is ongoing at
different rates in different forms. “There are however
excellent pockets of transformation.”
The HDA is a national public-sector development agency
that acquires and prepares land as well as develops the
land and project manages the development of housing and
human settlements, shares Trafalgar Property Group MD,
Andrew Schaefer’s perspective.
Over the years, various cities have worked around
creating an integrated city providing access to different
class groups and injecting diversity in and around the area.
Schaefer says that there has been some progress in city
transformation linked to demographic of tenants.
“In Johannesburg we see increased clusters of foreign
Africans living in clusters, living as a community.”
He expresses that there’s also been a fair amount of
building developments, conversions and refurbishments,
“to try and improve conditions of buildings thus making
residential accommodation available which taps into
the demand for accommodation in the cities, are
well-located area.”
“The most significant public-sector investments have been
in low-income housing, public transport infrastructure, and
bulk infrastructure for basic services provision, as well as
improved access to health and education,” shares Busgeeth.
Introductions of in