Ramaphosa’s smart city dream becomes ‘reality in the making’

While a smart city needs high-quality, predictable and affordable public transport, the aim is to reduce the need for public transport as much as possible.

Two years after President Ramaphosa announced his dream for a South African smart city, the draft Greater Lanseria Master Plan (GLMP) has been completed by a team of professionals appointed by the Presidency and the Gauteng Provincial Government.

By Kirsten Kelly

Deon Du Plessis, function manager: Urban Development Division at SMEC Erky Wood, director at GAPP Architects & Urban Designers

GAPP Architects & Urban Designers won an open tender and was commissioned to lead the design of the smart city. The professional team (assembled at tender stage) included SMEC South Africa’s Urban Development Division as the infrastructure and transportation planners.

The Lanseria Smart City will cover a huge area (430 km2) that straddles three municipalities – City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality, and Mogale City Local Municipality – and shares a border with Madibeng Local Municipality in the North West. Deon Du Plessis, function manager: Urban Development Division at SMEC, explains that this adds a level of political complexity to the project. “A province cannot do any planning at a local authority level. Planning is a function of the municipalities. It is important to get buyin from each local municipality.”

Erky Wood, director at GAPP Architects & Urban Designers, adds that the company therefore reported to a complex client body. “We worked with a project steering committee comprising representatives from the Presidency and the Gauteng Premier’s Office, the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), as well as from the City of Johannesburg, City of Tshwane, Mogale City and Madibeng Local Municipality.”

The meaning of a smart city

“The majority of people associate a smart city with technology. This is a small component of a smart city. It is about creating a liveable space. A liveable city also needs land use, energy, water, mobility and refuse. All of these components need to be integrated with each other in order to create a sustainable city. The smart part of a city is not about the tech – it’s placing the correct urban structures in the correct places,” says Du Plessis.

Wood believes that simply imposing the latest ‘smart’ technology in a structurally flawed urban system will merely increase the digital divide. “You have to get the fundamentals right, and inclusion is a vital part of a smart city. The Lanseria Smart City needs to be understood

within the complex South African paradigm. This will be a city that incorporates the full socio-economic profile of South African society and serves the needs of everyone who lives in it. A smart city creates an inclusionary space.”

President Ramaphosa has referred to the Lanseria Smart City as South Africa’s first post-apartheid city. “We have embraced that description and are passionate about creating an inclusionary urban structure,” says Wood.

Creating a local economy is an important part of creating an inclusionary city. The GLMP puts new infrastructure in place in order to attract new economic drivers with an emphasis on those that SMMEs and start-ups can latch on to, forming a more complex cross-over and inclusionary economy.

Another fundamental part of a smart city is the green agenda. While compact, complex cities are efficient from a space perspective, they use a lot of energy and water, as well as have a large carbon footprint. This is, however, an advantage in that it concentrates these otherwise negative factors into a single ‘pointload’ where they can all be tackled holistically and with focus. A smart city uses energy and water efficiently and has a low carbon footprint. Efficiencies in the Lanseria Smart City can be achieved via spatial patterning and smart infrastructure that uses biogas, solar, waste-toenergy and water reuse technologies.

The Lanseria Smart City must not, under any circumstances, promote further urban sprawl. It sits on an edge portion of the Magaliesberg Biosphere and also impinges slightly upon the Cradle of Humankind’s World Heritage Site. The Lanseria Smart City comes with a carefully crafted transition zone to take development pressure off these two areas.

Agriculture will play an important part in creating a local economy for the Lanseria Smart City. An agri-village is planned in the Northern Farms area. Urban farming, high-density agricultural development involving hydroponics, tunnel farming, rooftop gardens and public grow spaces will be encouraged. The GLMP also includes a regional fresh produce market.

Lack of development in the area

“A significant population already lives in the Lanseria Smart City area and there is a desperate need for development. But most of the region within the area is viewed as outside the ‘urban boundary’, making it difficult to gain critical mass from an economic point of view,” explains Wood.

The City of Johannesburg has quite rightly channelled investment into the ‘Corridors of Freedom’ in the city centre, as well as the south-western part of the metro, and has not viewed Lanseria as an area of focus for extended local authority infrastructure. The part controlled by the City of Tshwane is considered rural and there is no push for development. While Mogale City would like investment in the area, it has no capacity and is hemmed in by the Cradle of Humankind’s World Heritage Site and the Magaliesberg Biosphere Reserve.

Split jurisdictions and insufficient infrastructural capacity are additional reasons why there has been a lack of development in the area.

“People living on the margins of the wider Gauteng City Region in places like Diepsloot and Cosmo City spend a lot of time and money to commute and find work in more urban areas. The GLMP intends to rectify this and develop a new local economy in the area that creates economic prospects for people already living there,” says Wood.

The aim is to create a city where the local population lives, works, learns, prays and plays in the same space

Infrastructure

Currently, the entire Lanseria Smart City is poorly serviced with infrastructure, other than the N14 highway. Both the Northern Wastewater Treatment Works (WWTW) and Driefontein WWTW are heavily overloaded. The City of Johannesburg has been planning the desperately needed construction of the Lanseria WWTW for many years. It has received the necessary authorisations and licences but needs to raise funds.

There is also a plan to build the Lindley WWTW in 20 to 25 years to deal with the growth of the new city into the catchment of the Crocodile River to unlock development within the catchment.

The majority of people associate a smart city with technology. This is a small component of a smart city. It is about creating a liveable space. A liveable city also needs land use, energy, water, mobility and refuse. The smart part of a city is not about the tech – it’s placing the correct urban structures in the correct places.”

“We believe that the Lanseria WWTW is the correct solution for the Lanseria Smart City and is the only plan that can be implemented in the next five to six years. It already has existing demand and is to be implemented with an element of urgency in 50 Mℓ modules. The GLMP has suggested that the Lanseria WWTW be one of the first projects implemented in the smart city,” says Du Plessis.

The GLMP also suggests an option of using package treatment plants to unlock development outside the catchment of the new WWTW prior to it coming online. “In the future, we foresee using technologies like urine diversion and waterless sewerage systems, which will drastically reduce the demand on the Lanseria WWTW,” adds Du Plessis.

Transport

While a smart city needs high-quality, predictable and affordable public transport, the aim is to reduce the need for public transport as much as possible, with a local population that lives, works, learns, prays and plays in the same space. The Lanseria Smart City will be a walkable city that is bike-friendly with non-motorised transit routes. High-occupancy vehicles (such as the Rea Vaya bus) via designated routes would be encouraged.

“We have also made proposals for a railbased freight and logistics hub in the area. Transnet has indicated that it has lost appetite for new infrastructure and we have therefore considered how private rail could service the area. Gautrain has plans to extend its line to Lanseria Airport,” explains Wood.

“The airport itself at present sits without the support of adjacent urban land that can create critical mass that builds on its potential as a very significant economic driver. With the Lanseria Smart City, the airport will become a more focal area and a major cargo hub into Africa. It may need to expand the runway from 3 km to 4 km, and the GLMP has tried its best to allow for the future expansion requirements for the airport.”

Financing a smart city

Significant investments are needed to make the Lanseria Smart City a reality.

The DBSA is spearheading an initiative to make use of a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) to secure funding, develop the project, operate Lanseria’s Smart City infrastructure, and recoup the investment via rates and service charges. In so doing, regional infrastructure investment need not place a burden on the balance sheets of local government. Furthermore, the SPV for the Lanseria Smart City should be used as a case study that can be replicated elsewhere.

While split jurisdiction may be a reason for lack of development in the area, it may be favourable when developing a funding model. “Residents of the Lanseria Smart City will come from the three different municipalities, but they will be using the same utilities and may therefore have to pay the utility directly. However, this will probably face opposition from municipalities as they use revenue earned from the supply of water and power for other services.”

The model still needs to be fine-tuned and the DBSA is in the process of creating the bankable feasibility documents.

When briefed, GAPP was told that the Lanseria Smart City must be a publicly led city initiative – it cannot simply be driven by developers but it must recognise the vital role of developers in being the basic implementing agency.

“In addition to financing the project, another hurdle is the fact that all the land in the Lanseria Smart City area is privately owned. We have therefore recommended that a real estate investment trust be put in place. This will prevent land, regardless of its urban framework, being pursued for ‘highest and best possible use’ that could result in, for an example, a shopping centre being placed inappropriately simply because the developer happens to own it,” explains Wood.

Wood concludes that the Lanseria Smart City will be a testing bed for the SPV as well as the setting up of development controls when encouraging developers to use sustainable technology. “By-laws and policies need to be in place. There could be a mechanism for developers whereby they could receive 40 of the 100 points required for a four-star Green Star building by merely buying land in that space. A four-star-rated building should be an entry-level development in the Lanseria Smart City. And rebates could be offered for four-star-rated buildings and upwards. The idea is that the more Green Star-rated buildings in the area, the less need there is for intensive infrastructure spend going forward.”