The rise of the Phoenix or an Achilles heel? : Breaking New Ground's impact on urban sustainability and integration

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In 2004, the then Department of Housing's Breaking New Ground (BNG) policy introduced a compilationof principles that underlie a sustainable human settlement. The principles were aimed at guiding, amongstothers, municipal officials in the decisions they take when faced with a housing development project. Thisthesis will set out to determine how municipal officials have taken up BNG's principles for sustainablehousing settlements as well as the perceptions, methods of implementation and degree of acceptance thathousing and town planning managers have of BNG. In the study, the perceived relevance that thesemanagers have of BNG within their non-metropolitan towns is explored using five of the fifteen leadertowns of the Western Cape Province. This research has shown that BNG considers the compact urban form,coupled to other development considerations, as the most sustainable for South Africa. In terms of buildingsustainable human settlements: the low-income housing unit has evolved substantially since its conception,and that the current unit is held in far higher regard (by both municipalities and beneficiaries) than itspredecessors. The design of this unit remains standardised due to a lack of funding for a more flexibledesign, but its structure allows for additions to be made at the cost of the beneficiary. Funding thus remainsa major constraint to housing delivery. Municipalities feel that they are able to implement BNG, but thatthere are certain shortcomings in the document which prevent its full implementation. One of theseshortcomings is the lack of an external funding mechanism for housing delivery, proposed in BNG, butnever having materialised. Further, BNG focuses more on the metropolitan scenario and is not alwaysrelevant to non-metropolitan towns. Almost all of the municipalities have initiated inner city regenerationprojects, but fewer have included the provision of social housing as part of their inner city rejuvenation.Subsidy housing is the most implemented housing typology, but these units often experience decay due tothe absence of original owners who have (mostly illegally) sold or rented out their units. The one-erf-one-unitnature of subsidy housing is not seen as sustainable owing to space limitation experienced by most ofthe municipalities interviewed. Contrary to earlier research, in situ upgrading is a common occurrence inmunicipalities. However, there is a great need for stronger regional (or broader scale) planning regardinghousing delivery. Low-income housing is strongly influenced by politics – a fact which municipalities saynegatively influences housing delivery. Migration also poses a serious threat to municipal backlogs.Currently, the fight against an escalating demand for low-cost housing is a losing battle as the rate at whichgovernment is rolling out housing is vastly ineffectual. Municipalities deem that large-scale projects like theN2 Gateway might be a solution to their housing backlogs which, they concur, are at crisis point. However,municipalities indicated that their implementation of large scale projects will not follow the same path asthe N2 Gateway – the planning of which is seen to be substandard. Currently, urban integration takes placeon an income basis and not due to racial division. Inclusionary housing is seen as a relevant tool for thepromotion of integration, but cannot be enforced to its full potential due to a lack of supporting legislation.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University