REPORT
Phase 1 of Adowa’s Ellis Park Student Village in Doornfontein, Johannesburg, was completed in January 2022.
Initiatives to meet these requirements include a PV electricity generation system, non-resistive water heating through heat pumps for all hot water generation, lowflow bathroom fittings and energy-efficient LED lighting throughout the building as well as individual monitoring on all apartments. Low-carbon building materials such as cement bricks will be used. Eris’s Johannesburg student project is due for completion at roughly the same time. Following similar green design principles is Units on Jorissen Street in Braamfontein, offering 998 student beds. The development is conveniently located near Wits University. Both Units on Cape Station student accommodation at Cape Station precinct and Units on Jorissen Street in Braamfontein should be ready for student intake in 2023.
MEGA BEDS Adowa is the specialist student accommodation property developer behind a 7 000-bed pipeline, with 6 000 student beds due to come online in Cape Town, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in the next three years. Its target market is the more than 70% of learners funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). Adowa Property Developer CEO Sisa Rafuza says their residences are designed to offer students security, proximity to institutions and a design arrangement that fosters community. “The impact of not having a safe, purpose-fitting home to live in – of sleeping in libraries or backyard makeshift rooms – needs no explanation,” he says of the alternative. Reynolds makes a similar point about short-term solutions. “I believe students in South Africa have unique needs when compared to other places. We need to establish how student housing can provide a solution to these unique needs and build accordingly. An example is that some students need a quiet place, with access to Wi-Fi and meals, only around exam time. How can we provide this?”
“The revenue from NSFAS is fixed, so costs need to be managed. The only way to do that well is to ensure that you build sustainably in terms of the running of the building, so you can yield a decent return on your investment as a developer,” says Rafuza. Centralised water heating instead of individual unit geysers, glazed windows and water flow management are just some of the features implemented. Adowa says that being focused on developing new builds, not refurbishing old spaces, means they are able to introduce green features with relative ease. At the completed Ellis Park Student Village (Phase 1), 50m from the University of Johannesburg’s Doornfontein campus, Adowa’s holistic approach includes EDGE certification of the building design plus green materials. “For example, we’ve used autoclaved concrete that makes it more sustainable – the brick itself uses less water, with less waste,” says Rafuza. “It’s also lighter for transportation, so uses less trucks and fuel overall. That is one sustainable aspect of the build.” Adowa’s Ellis Park Student Village provided 1 047 new beds on completion in January 2022. Another 600 beds will come online in Phase 2, during the 2023 academic year. Braune says more beds are in the pipeline for Cape Town too. “UCT is planning to roll out additional student accommodation for about 4 000 students, to hopefully come online by 2023/2024. Various development proposals were received recently through an open tender process, which is now in negotiation stage on the preferred proposals received. These projects will also be targeting a minimum four-star Green Star standard.” Reynolds reminds that renovating and/or repurposing buildings into student housing is another option. Aside from providing opportunities for creative solutions and jobs, they are “sustainably better than building new”. “Currently, there are some very creative solutions for student housing in the retrofitted building space – reusing of office buildings, railway station buildings, etcetera. The financing of these projects is dependent on them attaining a Green Star or EDGE rating.”
Following green design principles is Eris Property Group’s Units on Jorissen Street in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, offering 998 student beds.
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POSITIVE IMPACT ISSUE 18
