The Cape Times today reports that the City of Cape Town is considering adopting a city densification policy next month. This is welcome news and needs to be supported! Continued low-density urban sprawl in Cape Town is not sustainable. We are one of the most dispersed and fragmented cities in the world in terms of our urban form.
It is important that, once adopted, the policy does not remain at the level of rhetoric. Strong incentives for densification and urban infill need to be put in place, as well as tough disincentives for perpetuating urban sprawl. For example, developers need to know that there will be advantages to going through a more complex infill rather than greenfields development process.
Different ways of achieving the same density, from the City of Cape Town’s Densification Strategy Executive Summary document:
City to change way space is used, Cape Times, 9 September 2010
THE City of Cape Town is expected to adopt a new densification policy next month to force all developments to use space optimally and have no less than 25 “dwelling units” per hectare.
This move is expected to change the face of the city and how commercial and residential developments are carried out. And to encourage densification, the city will offer municipal tax rebates in areas targeted for higher density development.
The policy notes that rapid and continuous low-density development is threatening the long-term sustainability of Cape Town and has created a number of challenges, including:
● Agricultural land on the urban edge and elsewhere is rapidly being consumed by urban development;
● Long travel distances have been created by urban sprawl with fragmented and dispersed urban activity patterns making it difficult to develop a viable public transport system,
● Road-based transport with increased traffic congestion and CO2 emissions has significant environmental pollution consequences;
● The unit cost of providing the necessary infrastructure required to service low-density forms of urban development is far greater than the unit and operating cost of servicing higher-density forms.
Councillor Gisela Jespersen told the planning and environment portfolio committee (Pepco) this week that the policy would have a major impact on how the city would look in the future.
The city plans to achieve densification, by constructing attached second dwellings, increasing the existing bulk and number of units through the expansion and adding additional floors, consolidating vacant or developed erven and then redeveloping them at higher densities, subdivision of land and higher density development on vacant and under-utilised land.
“The city aims to achieve a minimum, average gross base density of 25 dwelling units per hectare in the next 20-30 years and will aim for a higher gross base density thereafter,” reads the policy.
