The City of Johannesburg, in partnership with the Gauteng Department of Housing, shortlisted 5 companies in 2000 for the submission of development proposals for the development of a housing project called Cosmo City, located on ±1 100 hectares to the north of Johannesburg.

Basil Read and Kopano ke Matla were the successful bidders and decided to form a development company called Codevco. Urban Dynamics was entrusted to prepare the bid submission on behalf of Codevco and was also made responsible to manage the professional team up to the submission of the town planning application. Urban Dynamics was also appointed to perform all town planning and land surveyor professional services.

Cosmo City is an integrated housing project, which makes provision for 11 192 erven, of which 11 288 are for individual housing typologies. The individual housing typologies are split between 4 992 fully subsidized housing, 2 959 financial charter houses, and 3 337 bonded housing. Two existing informal settlements in the area, namely Zevenfontien and Riverbend, will be relocated to the site, mainly in the fully subsidized housing component of the project. The value of the financial charter houses are between R180 000 to R280 000 and the bonded houses from R380 000 up to R800 000. Nine high residential density sites have been provided in order to supply ±1 000 rental housing units. Seventeen school sites have also been provided, as well as other land uses such as garages, municipal, churches, community facilities and public open space purposes. Twenty seven hectares have also been provided for industrial development in order to provide job opportunities and reinforce the sustainability of the development. From an environmental point-of-view, 225 hectares have been set aside for conservation purposes. ±150 hectares have been reserved for provincial roads in order to ensure future mobility in the region for the beneficiaries.

The success of the project can be measured firstly on the amount of bonded houses being sold, as this is an indicator of the desirability of the project from a housing market point-of-view. The first 1 000 financial charter houses are also in the process of being sold and completed in partnership with 702 Talk Radio.

The investment from the public sector which has taken place simultaneously with the private investment has also ensured a quality environment from a social and aesthetically perspective. The engineering level of services have been higher than normal in order to minimize the cost of maintenance in the future, as well as to provide good quality of life, such as all roads have been surfaced and trees have been planted along all main roads. Each household have also been provided with a tree to be planted in their garden. Five primary schools and two high schools have been constructed and are fully functional. Four parks have been developed and two other are in progress. 170 houses through the initiative of the City of Johannesburg have been provided with solar panels. Eskom is investigating the possibility to provide such facility for all fully subsidized houses in Cosmo City.

The project has received three awards namely: Best Housing Project, Best Developer of the Year and Best Public Private Partnership of the Year, which indicates that this first integrated housing project has been recognized as the model to be followed in housing delivery in order to create sustainable development.

Download Cosmo City Brochure

Urban Dynamics Gauteng Inc. is part of a larger group of companies operating under the Urban Dynamics brand.  These professional practices originated from the gradual expansion of the first Gauteng-based UD Holdings company.  The Group is represented by permanent branch offices throughout South Africa and Namibia.  Provinces within South Africa with no permanent branch offices are mostly attended to from Gauteng while the remainder of Southern and Sub Saharan Africa is serviced by Urban Dynamics Gauteng and Urban Dynamics Namibia. 

Should you require assistance from any of the Urban Dynamics Group Companies, please do not hesitate to contact us at the following branches:

UD Gauteng

Hannes Potgieter

Tel: +(27)11 482 4131

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UD Gauteng Web Site 

UD North West

Maryke Els - Gerber

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UD North West Web Site

UD Free State

Leon Ehlers

Tel: +(27)51 446 0532

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UD KZN

Riaan Thompson

Tel: +(27)31 303 3900

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UD KZN Web Site

UD Mpumalanga

Johan Hamman 

Tel: +(27)13 243 1219

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UD Eastern Cape

Tel: +(27)41 373 7758

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UD Western Cape

Willem Herbert

Tel: +(27)21 852 7623

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 UD Port Elizabeth

 Tel: +(27)41 374 3980

Rowan van Gend

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UD EC Web Site

UD Namibia

Johann Opperman

Tel: +(264) 6124 0300

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UD Namibia Web Site

Urban Dynamics Gauteng Inc. is proud to announce that it is part of a team of consultants appointed to realise a bold and visionary mixed use estate development at River Glen, north of Fourways. The development covers approximately 700 Ha of land. It is situated immediately to the north of Dainfern Estate, East of Chartwell North and west of William Nicol Drive between William Nicol Drive and Cedar Road.

The total project has a capacity of some 11 000 residential units with the full spectrum of supportive land uses to establish a secure and balanced lifestyle. The existing project is not only unique due to its sheer size, but the impressive contribution that it will make towards regional bulk services upgrading to provincial and metropolitan roads, municipal sewers and bulk water supply. These bulk upgradings will help to unlock services for many other developments in the sub-region including Diepsloot East, Tanganani, Riversands and the City of Joburg’s own Ga Noka (Diepsloot Ext 8) development on the Northern Metro Farm.

The project includes a championship Golf Course (currently in construction), some 260 Ha of landscaped parkland incorporating pedestrian routes and bridle trails, and a mix of supportive uses including two private schools, office developments, convenience shopping, a retirement village and a private hospital.

Urban Dynamics Gauteng Inc. assisted the developer, Steyn City Properties (Pty) Ltd with the Town Planning Master Plan and will shortly conclude the township establishment for the “Rietvallei” portion also known as Riverside View Extension 9.

For more information, please contact:

As early as 1997, the Gauteng Department of Housing and Local Authority at that time (Western MLC) invited development proposals for a large housing initiative situated to the West of Soweto on portions of the farms Doornkop 239 I.Q. and Zuurbult 240 I.Q. This housing project was placed on hold due to the parallel identification of a provincial small farmers resettlement programme.

In the 2003/2004 financial year, the Gauteng Department of Housing conceived an integrated urban development project and appointed a team of professionals to conduct a project feasibility study. The “Doornkop Greenfields” project as it was known at the time, was always intended to be a large scale mixed income, mixed typology and mixed tenure housing development in keeping with the latest policy shifts of the National Housing Ministry in terms of Inclusionary Housing and the Breaking New Grounds (BMG) strategies. The integrated and mixed nature of the Doornkop Greenfields project meant that its planning phases were jointly conceptualized by the City of Joburg and the Gauteng Department of Housing.

The Joburg Property Company (JPC) was identified as the entity responsible for project implementation in the short term and initiated the process of land purchase and transfer from various national and provincial government departments and private land owners. The Gauteng Department of Housing currently still represents the principle funder of the project to date; while the agreements between Province and Council listing Council as the developer of the project.

From the outset, Doornkop Greenfields was planned as a project that could potentially address a large part of the housing backlog, backyard dwellers and informal settlers of Soweto. To this end, the Gauteng Department of Housing provisionally allocated 25 000 capital subsidies to the project with the approval of the project feasibility study in 2004. Urban Dynamics assisted with the preparation of this initial Feasibility Study under the RPT (Regional Professional Team) Program. After project funding approval by the Housing Advisory Committee, the preliminary planning process commenced which culminated in Urban Dynamics preparing and circulating a Spatial Development Framework in April 2005.

The circulation of the draft SDF for the Doornkop project enabled the various services utilities and departments to consider the project and the implications that it will have on infrastructure. This SDF also enabled the appointed civil engineers to calculate bulk services requirements for the project and engaged the authorities regarding funding for such infrastructure.

The extent of services and a shift in approach by the National Housing Ministry towards “Inclusionary Housing” prompted Council and the Gauteng Department of Housing to appoint a team of specialists to conduct a Business Plan for the implementation of the project. The Powerhouse Consortium (of which Urban Dynamics is a consortium member) was appointed to conduct a Financial Feasibility and Bankability Business Plan for the project. This Business Plan was completed for JPC and as adopted by Council. The project was since moved to the Joburg Housing Department who, through the Lufhereng Project Office is the entity managing the implementation of the project in accordance with the approved Business Plan.

To date, layout plans have been approved for the first phases of the Lufhereng Project which covers approximately a third of the total project in terms of land area and the planned 21 556 residential units. In addition, the Gauteng Department of Housing appointed a contractor for the implementation of the first 1000 subsidized dwellings in Lufhereng.

Urban Dynamics is proud to be associated with this exciting and truly inclusionary housing project. Urban Dynamics was involved with the project from conceptualization, through feasibility, urban design, planning and now implementation we believe that this project will become the benchmark for all BNG and Inclusionary Housing Projects in South Africa to follow.

The Lufhereng Project in the news:

• www.joburg.org.za
• http://www.joburg.org.za
• www.engineeringnews.co.za
• www.southafrica.info

For more information, please contact or download media releases here:

• Jon Busser
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• +27 82 653 4155

• Nico Venter
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• +27 82 418 5973

• Hannes Potgieter
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• +27 82 654 6696

Emil Nothnagel, Urban Dynamics' Local Economic Development Specialist will publish several articles on Local Economic Development in South Africa via the Urban Dynamics website, during the next few months.

Emil is of the opinion that South Africa’s post-1994 socio-economic terrain is littered with LED failures. While money is available, projects limp along; but when the money dries up, so do the projects. SMME development has met with a similar fate: up to 90% of new small businesses fail in the first year. Local Municipalities have been charged with the responsibility for sustainable LED in their constituencies. In consequence, LED officials abound. Special stimulants – for example, expanded public works projects (EPWPs) or funding for the fulfillment of Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) – have released substantial funds towards the upgrading of the labour skills base, the inclusion of women and youth into the economic mainstream, and (it was hoped) the general development of local economies. But the combined impact of all these measures has so far been negligible. Generally, sustainable LED simply won’t take root.

1.      IMPEDIMENTS TO LED

To truly understand the LED landscape, a good understanding of the reasons for the worrying state of affairs is needed? Four of these reasons in particular, deserve consideration (Emil Nothnagel, 2007):

 Basic economic substructures are damaged or non-existent. People are living in localities that are often overcrowded and plagued by poverty with no economic rationale. Traditional rationales have long ago been destroyed, all too often replaced merely by political or ideological concerns as in the case of apartheid-inspired dormitory towns. The task of building local economies has therefore been seriously underestimated.

Little strategic cohesion exists in current LED attempts. Attempts to establish sustainable LED tends to be uncoordinated, emerging from a system that is vertically divided. Soft issues are separated from hard infrastructural issues. Authorities work in "silos", case in point where the housing department doesn't talk to the LED department; LED has little understanding of what is happening in the municipal tourism offices; procurement officials seek the best deals while remaining ignorant of emerging local SMME's; and so on.

LED is seen as project driven rather than locality inclusive. There is a widespread misunderstanding that LED is directed at the poor, supporting initiatives where they earn a few cents from project based initiatives. This generally results in a division between the so-called 'second' and 'first' economies that is inimical to the steady development of an inclusive locality-based foundation for sustainable economic development.

Scant consideration is given to the psycho-cultural aspects of development. Being poor and unemployed is fundamentally boring and demeaning. LED efforts are bound to fail if the needs to raise self-esteem and to stimulate a sense of identity with the locality being economically developed are ignored. This generally creates a 'dependency syndrome' mentality displayed by all too many beneficiaries of LED initiatives in South Africa, and must begin to be realigned towards the richer rewards of self-actualisation.

 This worrying state of affairs forces stakeholders to think differently about LED and to consider existing channels, infrastructure and resources that offers an integrated approach to drive local economic development in smaller towns.

2.      FINDING A SOLUTION 

The State’s Approach - We can begin by observing that LED funding from the state is usually locked into large capital projects with the expectation that increased job opportunities, particularly of the marginalized, and increased training among the unskilled, will eventually lead to a more employable population and to the emergence of greater SMME development. In theory, that will probably be the case in the long run – and 'the long run' may extend to a considerable time, not least because responsibility for on-the-ground local economic development has been devolved to the generally struggling third-tier government level. So, a special catalyst is required to convert state funding more rapidly into those 'strategically planned and deliberately integrated' local economies for which municipalities have become responsible.

The Development Hub Defined - In short, the Development Hub concept is this catalyst – but only if it is carefully defined to take into account existing state inputs and a more holistic definition of LED established above. Such a definition would read:

"The development hub concept is designed to build viable local economies by maximizing the impact of state interventions for local economic development and enriching the influence of these interventions with a bouquet of sustainable grassroots services"

 But for this effective conversion of state interventions into a sustainable socio-economic development process, a 'core operating rationale' for the Development Hub and its various services needs to be clearly recognized.

Download Article 1: Local Economic Development in South Africa

Download Article 2: Can Local Authorities in Small Towns get Maximum LED impact out of Tourism?

• Emil Nothnagel
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• +27 82 613 1097