Urban sprawl Citichat 13 July 2001

CITICHAT 27/2001 - 13th July 2001


Urban Sprawl

Greatly encouraged to see the report in Tuesday's Business Day of the Cape Town Partnership's ‘Plan’ that they have submitted to their city council. The plan appears to have adopted "smart growth" principles that, although labeled ‘radical’ in the press report, have been gaining force in the US for quite some years. According to the report “developers will have to prove to the council their proposals will not displace social or economic activity from designated urban nodes. The burden of proof currently lies with the local authority. The partnership wants to reverse this, and has recommended legislation to restrict municipal spending on public infrastructure - such as roads and sewers – to designated growth areas.” Perceptive comment by the reporter that Century City and the new Westlake Business Park would probably not have passed the partnership’s suggested criteria. I have long felt that Cape Town was shooting itself in the foot by allowing such ‘sprawl’ development by not learning from Johannesburg’s mistakes and taking cognisance of the enormous damage that has been done to Joburg’s Inner City as a result of a laissez faire approach to sprawl.

However, because the Province of Gauteng includes a number of major cities, our approach to sprawl has been from a Provincial rather than a metropolitan point of view. The previous concern appears to have been that if Johannesburg adopted a tough, smart-growth approach and the other cities chose not to, it might well be to Joburg’s disadvantage, not a concern I personally share. I first covered the possibility of an Urban Growth Management Policy way back in a Citichat of 26 November 1998 when I reported on a workshop convened by the then Premier where the issue was discussed. In January 1999, the media announced that the Premier, together with the then MEC for Planning and Local Government, were to introduce a Provincial Bill “banning all development outside of the CBD of Johannesburg”. I never got to the bottom of whether the politicians had misunderstood the issue or whether the press had deliberately acted mischievously in misquoting them. I do remember that the letter pages were full of righteous indignation and that I wrote an article to try to set the matter straight which received withering comment from one source who clearly didn't understand the concept and objected to the “smart growth” terminology I had used! Others accused the Provincial Government of "apartheid planning in reverse"!

Nearly three years later, under a new Premier and a new MEC for Planning and Local Government, the draft Gauteng Planning and Development Bill has been published and provides principles to promote spatial restructuring and development that “promote the compaction of towns and cities through discouraging urban sprawl and protecting the agricultural resource base.” In addition, also as previously covered in a Citichat, the City Development Plan (the consolidated Local Integrated Development Plans for the metro) also includes the bones of a smart growth approach.

The latest edition of ‘Getting Smart’, the newsletter of the “Smart Growth Network” as always carries a number of interesting articles based on practical experience in the USA in relation to sprawl and which provides us with valuable information and direction. For example, in one article there is a strong motivation for the use of fiscal impact analyses rather than for the more traditional economic impact studies. The latter evaluate direct and indirect impacts on overall economy, typically new jobs, real disposable income, and consumer spending. Fiscal impact analyses on the other hand, rather determine costs and revenues attributable to new developments. Thus they examine revenues, capital costs and associated operating expenses. After such an analysis, fiscal impacts can then be evaluated next to non-fiscal issues such as environmental concerns, housing affordability, jobs/housing balance, and quality of life.

In another article, an excellent report on research undertaken by the Michigan Land Use Institute into Garfield Township, the following extract expresses some hard realities which underpin the approach that the Cape Town Partnership appears to be taking: “Garfield Township, which like other local governments in Michigan, has long disdained the influence of outsiders in decisions that affect its future, no longer has a choice. Taxpayers outside its jurisdiction are pressing Garfield and neighbouring governments to coordinate their planning in order to protect the environment, build better communities and save money. Like other investors interested in sound use of their money, taxpayers are demanding and winning more accountability and influence in decisions about future growth. The Institute’s findings make it clear that sprawl is neither an accident nor a product of the free market, but is fundamentally influenced by public policies and public investments (my underlining). And, in a departure from previous eras, when development decisions were made by a handful of men working largely in private, the disputes over what will be built, and where, are now the most closely followed and visible public debates in local communities throughout the United States.”

The Institute developed a 12-step programme intended for citizens and local government leaders to use in breaking the sprawl addiction and improving patterns of development. These include directing public investments for roads, sewers, schools, water lines and economic growth into already developed areas, instead of farther out in the countryside; establishing urban growth boundaries; encouraging bankers to finance neighbourhoods instead of sub-divisions and downtown construction instead of malls and, requiring state agencies to abide by local land use plans!!!!!

I trust that the new Gauteng Planning and Development Bill, Johannesburg's LIDP together with the Cape Town Partnership’s bold approach will raise the level of national awareness of the seriousness of the situation. We must move from paying lip service to taking firm action in regard to an issue that is not peculiar to Johannesburg and Cape Town but which is negatively affecting all of our towns and cities.

I mentioned some time ago a Cities Conference which is now shaping up to be held in Johannesburg during the week 20 to 24 August and which will include a number of international ‘urbanists’ – we are hoping to include a “Smart Growth” practitioner amongst them. Final news on this next week, but mark your diaries now!.







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