PROPERTY & INVESTMENT
government haven ’ t always seen eye to eye either . So how could this be addressed and what are the property industry ’ s views on the matter ? What does the future hold ?
Here we ask a few quick-fire questions of Rahla Schaffer , head of development at Blok , about how our views about land are slowly starting to change – particularly when it comes to size . She also gives her views on how developers and government could come to a possible understanding .
How much has politics influenced the way we live now ?
Rahla Schaffer ( RS ): I wanted to go down into a discussion on micros and historically being segregated … but I don ’ t think we should go that deep . What I can say is that maybe , historically , people have seen large space as a luxury , especially after our history .
However , with micro and compact living , we ’ re turning this on its head by still providing people with access to an incredible city lifestyle with myriad economic , social and environmental amenities .
Or they may consider a way to give additional development rights to a developer in the manner we attempted with our 80:20 model many years ago . Any form of subsidy usually gets passed on to some form of end user , meaning someone ends up paying .
What can the property industry do to ensure and forge positive relationships with the government so that everyone can win ?
RS : The biggest split in the sector is the difference in timelines between the government and the private sector . If they could somehow align here , it would put us in a better position to come up with real solutions .
What are some of the major issues that property developers would like to see change in South Africa that politicians could help with ?
RS : Excessive development charges being passed on to developers , longterm planning processes that are inefficient and ineffective – often costing developers hundreds of thousands of rands in interest and hold costs – and a willingness to try new models to develop appropriate policies instead of building policies with no real-life experience to back up the policies .
Angelique Ruzicka
What does the future look like in terms of government involvement ?
RS : In an ideal world , the government would reconsider the onerous planning process to get any project off the ground and use this as a way to cut down on timelines and project running costs in order to incentivise developers accordingly .
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