SA Affordable Housing May - June 2020 // ISSUE: 82 | Page 26

PROJECT
Living in The Bronx
CENTRAL DEVELOPMENTS
By Eamonn Ryan
SA Affordable Housing looks at the new R10-billion Sky City development
south of Johannesburg. Specifically, we look at a sub-project, called The
Bronx @ Sky City, consisting of 534 apartments, which is the first of
three phases, eventually totalling 1 634 apartments. The broader Sky City
development will ultimately consist of 14 500 free-standing homes of which
2 600 have already been built and occupied since the beginning of 2017.
The greater Sky City project should be an active
construction site for the next ten to 15 years, and the
new city may one day have a population of 70 000,
says director at Central Developments Sakkie Wolmarans.
The Bronx at Sky City is being undertaken by Central
Developments of the Cosmopolitan Projects and Central
Developments Property Group – a business unit which
constructs and manages its stock of affordable rental
housing. As owner and manager, the company will
thereafter be permanently on site.
The 534 units comprising The Bronx @ Sky City consists of
a mix of bachelor, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments
all for rent, with the lowest rental at R3 000 per month, up
to R5 100 per month. The 2 600 freestanding homes of the
eventual 14 500, have already been completed and occupied
at Sky City and sold freehold. Considered one of the biggest
privately funded property developments in Gauteng, the new
project is positioned on a portion of agricultural land just
south of Alberton and Katlehong known as Watervalspruit.
Wolmarans says The Bronx is the next stage of the Sky City
development, and itself will have three phases, with a second
and third currently in the early planning stage. “We initially
looked at the social housing model, but then decided to have
no government subsidy element.”
It is an ‘integrated development’ with each floor
containing four units in a mix of sizes, and therefore different
24 MAY - JUNE 2020 SAAffordHousing saaffordablehousingmag SA Affordable Housing www.saaffordablehousing.co.za