INSIGHT
WHY ALL THE CRANES?
If it’s all doom and gloom, why are there so many cranes on the skyline, asks Patrick McInerney.
Those hard-working cranes
Part of the reason for the abovementioned
cranes is the enormous property boom
in the central nodes. Many new A-grade
www.equipmentandhire.co.za
buildings are coming on stream and being
filled by tenants previously in B-grade
buildings. So, there’s now an oversupply
of B-grade property and, because of
all the new projects, an oversupply of
A-grade as well.
But it is part of the natural cycle of
the industry and not the harbinger of its
imminent doom. Those empty B grade
spaces represent a massive opportunity
for the future.
Water and energy scarcity
solutions
The fact that South Africa effectively
ran out of water in 2016 and that
around 41% of water is lost due to bad
infrastructure is obviously concerning.
So too is the reality that obtaining water
usage licences for new developments is
now far harder than it has ever been.
But the good news is that solving
the water scarcity problem has been
declared the number one priority for
Government. Cape Town, after staring
down the barrel of its own Day Zero
in early 2018, has made tremendous
strides in water conservation. Rand
Water recently carried out a major water
infrastructure upgrade in Gauteng, which,
despite howls of protest from the public
and media because of the required
shutdown of services, is a definite
positive.
Going forward, successful building
developments will require that water and
energy consumption be reduced and,
as far as possible, buildings contribute
to energy generation, and water be
collected and reused. The technology
already exists to achieve this. At Co-Arc
International Architects, for example,
a major project we successfully
completed in Accra - Ghana required
that we not only conserve the limited
water supply, but reuse and augment it
to the point where we achieved a 76%
saving in water consumption. The same
project had 60% savings in net energy
I
came away from the recent 2019
SAPOA Convention feeling depressed
about the range of the discussion
regarding the property industry and the
economy in general. If things really are so
bad, why are a record number of building
cranes adorning our city skylines, why are
we not celebrating the successes?
This year’s SAPOA Convention was
probably the most downbeat that I’ve
attended in my many years in the building
industry. The majority of speakers gave
us bad news – ranging from water
scarcity problems through to concerns
about the oversupply of property, the
industry’s talent drain and government’s
lack of policy certainty.
I know I wasn’t the only attendee to
come away disheartened. It’s feasible
that some negativity was orchestrated to
send government a message. But there
were probably people who decided to
leave South Africa based on what they
were told in that conference room.
As I pondered what I’d heard,
I realised that all this negativity is
ridiculous! Why, I asked myself, if things
are so bad, do we have a record number
of building cranes operating in places
such as Sandton, Rosebank and Cape
Town? How, if the building industry is on
the brink of implosion as some would
have us believe, is it possible to have
more cranes working on construction
projects than at any time since the
1960s? Have we got less policy certainty
than in 1994?
I am certainly not one to put my head
in the sand as to the problems we’re
facing as an industry. But I believe we’re
in danger of creating a self-fulfilling
prophecy by ignoring the many positives
and talking ourselves into a self-created
downturn.
Patrick McInerney, Director of Co-Arc
International Architects.
“I am certainly not
one to put my head
in the sand as to
the problems we’re
facing as an industry.
But I believe
we’re in danger
of creating a self-
fulfilling prophecy by
ignoring the many
positives and talking
ourselves into a self-
created downturn.”
OCTOBER 2019
39