Estate Living Magazine Precinct Living - Issue 33 | 页面 9

Rory Wilkinson, Planning Director of Durban’s Tongaat Hulett
Developments, says:
A mixed-use environment provides
opportunities, not only for the people living in
the new development, but equally for the people
surrounding it, the broader population. And you can
only do that through higher intensity of use and
by providing a more varied mix of uses in a small,
compact space, which at the same time starts
to enable and facilitate the utilisation of public
transport."
Integral to these new development areas is transportation. And
it’s not a case of ‘just build new roads’. On the contrary, it entails
joint planning with local municipalities around the development
of public transport routes. In Tongaat Hulett’s case, they work
closely with the eThekwini Municipality, ensuring that, as land
stewards, they know the needs of the City when it comes to
integrating with the GO!Durban Integrated Rapid
Public Transport Network (IRPTN). For example,
Bridge City was developed between the key
nodes of Pinetown and uMhlanga Ridge
specifically to take advantage of the
Bridge City railway station, which is
linked to the Durban CBD by 22 daily
trains to and from the CBD and its
position as a node for the three bus
rapid transport corridors, including
the IRPTN. When that’s complete,
Bridge City will be the second busiest
commuter exchange in Durban. And it’s
all located beneath the new Bridge City
Shopping Mall, which adds an efficient retail
function to the mix.
residential development caters for all sectors, from the lower
end of the market to the high-end estates, with many businesses
and even large-scale industries, such as textiles and motor
vehicles, relocating to Midrand.
Cape Town is everyone’s darling, and why wouldn’t it be, with
Table Mountain, miles of accessible ocean and world-class
wining and dining? Historically, the CBD was Cape Town,
shadowed by its mountain and hugged by the shoreline. But
as populations grew the inevitable urban sprawl beyond the
mountain happened … and along with it long commutes,
horrendous traffic jams and higher blood pressure as residents
made their way into the city to work. In an attempt to ‘fix’ this,
the City has earmarked a number of projects to breathe life into
‘old’ areas.
The most obvious is the V&A Waterfront development, which
quite rightly has become a benchmark for its reinvention and
efficiency as a mixed-use environment. From its days as the
historic docklands around the Victoria and Alfred basins to its
redevelopment as a residential and commercial area comprising
hotels, extensive retail, dining and entertainment facilities,
it’s not just been a case of ‘out with the old’.
Great care has been taken to restore – for
example, the conversion of the historic
grain silo that now houses the Zeitz
Museum of Contemporary Art
Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), the Kings
Warehouse into retail space,
and the Radisson Red Hotel,
which is housed in No. 6 Silo.
In Midrand, the property boom following the construction
of the Mall of Africa in Gauteng’s new Waterfall precinct has
seen traffic becoming increasingly heavy, so much so that
developers are strongly recommending the use of public
transport, including the use of Gautrain buses to get to and
from the Midrand Gautrain Station. The driving force behind
Midrand becoming a key growth point in Gauteng is its rapid
commercial and residential development coupled with its
central location between Johannesburg and Pretoria. The
www.estate-living.co.za
| 7