FEATURES
With its ability to regulate both air humidity and temperature, a brick building maintains a comfortable interior throughout hot, rainy months – rooms don’ t become dank and stuffy. Double leaf clay brick walls minimise interior damp and condensation in winter rainfall regions like the western and southern Cape.
Student health: Students are not the tidiest of tenants. Clay bricks are resistant to damage from borer and termites, moulds and fungi, insects and rodents. They do not release Volatile Organic Compounds( VOCs) or toxic gases, which results in excellent indoor air quality.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE PRIVATE SECTOR
At the recent Student Housing Symposium at the University of Pretoria, Blade Nzimande( South African Minister of Higher Education and Training) admitted that his department had insufficient funds to deal with the backlog and needed assistance from the private sector.
He said in the past three years, R1.6-billion in government grants to universities for student housing projects had been supplemented by university funds of R700-million. The combined amount had provided only 9 000 additional beds. This leaves plenty of opportunity for private investors to take up the slack.
There are a variety of options available to universities to address the issue, McMurray advises. Option one is renting a building, a common practise across the world which saves the university from high capital costs.
Secondly, they can put out a tender for someone to build and operate it for them. Then in 12 or 25 years or whatever the model is, it reverts back to the university. They don’ t have to fork out the capital or take any of the risk – it can simply go to the private sector that specialise in this.
That is for building new capacity. The other side of the coin is upgrading existing capacity.
“ Universities are not in the game of housing, they’ re in the game of education. That’ s why it makes sense that everything should be outsourced to companies that specialise in this,” says McMurray.“ Overseas, a number of Ivy League universities have sold their residences to the private sector that did upgrades, increased the capacity, modernised the buildings and it worked very well for them.”
This takes care of the problem of capital expenditure. The universities receive less funding from the government so they don’ t have the money to fix existing buildings. The problem isn’ t just about building student accommodation but also managing these buildings profitably.“ If you handed that whole problem over to the private sector, just imagine how much capital you’ d free up to support students with grants and other things,” says McMurray.“ But nobody is engaging the private sector – that’ s the problem.”
The government is talking about taking existing government building stock such as the Johannesburg CBD and converting it to student accommodation. But it doesn’ t help if the building isn’ t in the right place.“ Even in the best case scenario, you’ ll end up with a bunch of residences in places you shouldn’ t have them. We don’ t have the public transport to get them from there to the university.‘’ It’ s not safe, it’ s far from shops and
" There is engagement with the private sector, however, it is very limited- there needs to be more collaboration."
entertainment. A student’ s life is not just about studying – you have to cover the full eco-system,” says McMurray.
Private companies like Respublica build these buildings and ensure they are not reliant on government or even the universities. But often the problem is no matter how much the student wants to stay there – they are not allowed to because of grant or accreditation issues and often there is a lot of unnecessary red-tape.
FUTURE OF STUDENT ACCOMMODATION
There is a silver lining, but it does require all parties to pull together and work together.“ Although there is a relationship between universities, government and the private sector – they could do so much more to collaborate,” says McMurray.
This collaboration becomes vital when developing new infrastructure, especially with regards to aligning with universities’ macro-development plans.“ If you have developers going out and doing disparate things, it becomes uncoordinated. Everything becomes more efficient if it’ s done on a structural nodal basis and not a disparate one,” says McMurray.
“ The future is promising, though disruptions on campus and a shortage of funding present a serious challenge,” says Schooling.“ The conversation, at a government and industry level, has shifted towards recognising the 21st Century principles – which bodes well. There is a growing body of research to back up the case for optimal design and the importance of community, connectivity and security.”
“ Green techniques are going to take off because they are cheaper, reduce waste and have the benefit of being very attractive to millennials,” Schooling predicts. The related innovations in construction methods and materials will incentivise the private sector to step in and address the deficit without risking profit.“ Hopefully, we will see more development on those campuses outside of our main cities, where there is the greatest need.”
A desperate situation it seems, but not an impossible one.
THE FACTS
• 20 years ago, 80 % of the global student population was accommodated in residences. Today, with the dramatic increase of learners heading to university, this figure has dropped to less than 20 %.
• Solving the student accommodation crisis in South Africa alone requires an investment of R240-billion.
• At historically disadvantaged institutions, it is not uncommon for as many as six to 10 students to share a tiny room with no electricity or running water.
AFFORDABLE
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