We want to be the change. That’s why we are leading the charge and doing the EcoDistricts work in South Africa.

Solid Green is investigating and testing the EcoDistricts methodology by looking at a specific node in the city, including developing an energy use and carbon emissions calculations tool. Once this is done, the project will then start to identify interventions that could de-carbonise the neighbourhood. The intention is to ultimately assist the City of Johannesburg to identify ways of scaling this work up and replicating it throughout the city.

Watch the video here:

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The City of Johannesburg’s journey to encourage urban revitalisation of the inner city and its surroundings is clearly indicated in its Inner-City Revitalisation Programme initiated in 2006. The main goals of the programme are as follows:

• Attract private investment into the City
• Increase the supply of affordable, quality housing in the inner city in terms of the Inclusionary Housing Policy
• Support intermodal activity
• Public amenity development
• Reduce crime activity in the city
• Job creation

To inject new energy into the process, in April 2019 the City released the details of 97 properties around the city that were to be earmarked for mixed use development. These properties were released to the private sector to aid the city to realize over R20 billion in investment value.

The Target Areas

The properties, which are dilapidated and situated on prime property land, are in regions such as Randburg, Rosebank, Orange Grove, Houghton and Wynberg. These properties were targeted due to their great accessibility and proximity to economic hubs within the city. The City put out a call to the private sector to invest by proposing mixed used developments with commercial and retail activity supported by ample affordable housing linked to the Inclusionary Housing Policy.

To date, there have been few responses from the private sector to the City’s call, with implementation being hindered by issues such as resident displacement and social justice priorities not being addressed (resettlement of poor residents to the periphery is contested); minimal community participation; and the viability of cost recovery for developers.

The EcoDistricts Protocol

At Solid Green, we believe that the EcoDistricts Protocol – which is “an urban development framework for achieving people-centered, economically vibrant, resource efficient, neighbourhood- and district-scale sustainability” – can aid the City’s regeneration efforts.

This is because the protocol requires projects to make an Imperatives Commitment at the initial phase of the engagement processes. These imperatives, strongly align with the goals if the City of Johannesburg’s urban revitalisation vision, are:

• Equity – Ensuring all members of the community can participate, lead, and thrive. Focus is placed on identifying vulnerable community members such as people of colour, low income, and people with disabilities, for example.
• Resilience – The capacity of a district to withstand social, economic, and environmental stresses.
• Climate Protection – Projects must have a pathway to carbon neutrality.

The EcoDistricts Priorities and Objective Categories are the guiding elements that can be used to assess areas to define how nodes could use strategic interventions along these lines to move the city toward its goals of a low carbon city.

Implementation phases are as follows:

• 1. Formation – intensive stakeholder engagement, governance framework development and declaration for collaboration between all stakeholders.
• 2. Roadmap – identify priorities, objectives, strategy, and performance indicators to move the city or EcoDistrict to a carbon neutral future.
• 3. Performance phase – requires continuous progress reporting on how strategies are evolving to move toward carbon neutrality.

The EcoDistricts Protocol requires that projects follow the procedure of Formation, Roadmap and the Performance stages to ensure that the imperatives highlighted in their commitment are carried out throughout. The Protocol gives timelines for when each stage must be complete and sent for review.

Commitment to continuous engagement

Collective impact is a strong theme throughout the EcoDistricts Protocol. The protocol calls for power-sharing, collective decision making, shared problems, and shared skills and resources within the City context, which is occupied by diverse stakeholders and interested parties. This core principle is integral to successful development. The protocol suggests communication measures and consideration on how to “bring everyone to the table”.

Final Thoughts

The City of Johannesburg’s move to release properties to be developed by the private sector, alongside outlining its main goals for urban revitalisation, are key starting points to guide the direction of the City. The EcoDistricts Protocol has the potential to educate the developer teams on how to successfully take these goals and properties forward, to successfully realise a regenerated city centre.

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In March 2020, the City informed us that a little celebration dance was in order! Our EcoDistrict team consists of Solid Green, Activate Architecture, KDM Quantity Surveyors and Satplan. From the Solid Green team, Marloes Reinink and Adrie Fourie are the overall sustainability leads for the project team; Chilufya Lombe and Alex Varughese are in charge of the modelling; and Zendre Compion is the EcoDistricts Accredited Professional guiding the team through developing an appropriate methodology suitable to the CoJ.

The overall aim of the project focusses on reducing the carbon footprint of the city and on allowing for better adaptation to the challenging climatic conditions the world is facing. The project must achieve the following objectives through its methodology:

• Develop CoJ’s approach to neighbourhood and district-scale equitable and sustainable development.
• Explore different facets of sustainable District Design.
• Guide Public and Private interventions and investments in the EcoDistrict to achieve greater sustainability.
• Draw together this learning as a tool for the City to inform its policy, standards and guidelines towards a sustainable low carbon future.

The EcoDistricts Protocol is an urban development framework for achieving people-centred, economically vibrant, resource efficient, neighbourhood- and district-scale sustainability. The tool is a freely-available, flexible performance framework rather than a prescriptive standard, recognising that every neighbourhood or precinct has a unique history, set of challenges and opportunities – and therefore its own individual ability and need to advance a place-based sustainability agenda.

The study area for this project is Orange Grove Special Development Zone, a neighbourhood in Johannesburg that is part of the Corridors of Freedom. The team will be looking at sustainability issues at the building, block, precinct and neighbourhood scale. Some of the outputs will centre on developing a carbon model that sets a baseline and targets for emission reduction goals and pathways, as well as new standards and guidelines for EcoDistricts to meet local context and constraints.

Says Liana Strydom, spatial planner at the City of Johannesburg:

Neighborhoods provide a unique scale to accelerate innovation and impact: small enough to innovate, yet big enough to leverage long-term investment and public policy. Orange Grove, and specifically the area identified as a Transit-Oriented-Development precinct, provides an excellent case study to prioritize the right kind of investments at the right scale – and also to consider the impact that investments will have in either creating more or less inclusiveness.

Reinink adds:

With the current global health crisis, we believe that this forward-thinking work is more important than ever before. Research shows that those who are most vulnerable to health hazards, namely those living in under-served communities , are also those who are most at risk from climate change. This includes the health risks posed by air pollution , which is linked to higher rates of death in people with Covid-19. EcoDistricts are therefore essential to the City’s pursuit of spatial equity.

Solid Green is excited to be working on this ground-breaking project, and wholeheartedly supports the forward thinking of the City of Johannesburg. We hope to contribute proactively to the sustainability of the city in which we live.

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