The City of Johannesburg is approving an average of nearly 2 000 building plans per month while some northern areas are experiencing growth rates of 25%.
Dr Philip Harrison, executive director of development planning and urban management, said figures indicated that the city’s population would double within 20 to 25 years.
”Where are these people going to live? How are they going to get around the city?” he asked at a Johannesburg media briefing.
Infrastructure shortages, public transport, formalisation of 250 informal settlements and management of development pressures were some of the issues that Johannesburg faced.
Infrastructure was becoming increasingly critical and starting to impact on development patterns, Harrison said.
Serious under-investment in infrastructure had occurred in the mid-Eighties and Nineties.
”We are living with the consequences now,” he said.
Harrison said that for a city of its size, Johannesburg did not yet have an effective public transport system.
The city’s large public transport investments, the Gautrain and the Bus Rapid Transport system, would require high-density, mixed-use corridors along routes.
Johannesburg had one of the world’s lowest densities but ”sprawling low-density development” could not continue and nodes and corridors were being looked at, Harrison said.
In the current financial year the department was approving an average of 1 913 building plans per month, 22 000 for the year, worth R5-billion per year.
On average, building inspectors did 17 inspections per day.
An average of 468 town planning approvals, more than 5 600 per year, were being done per month.
Tiaan Ehlers, director of development management, said he was confident that a new service approach would result in 60% approvals of building plans within 24 hours and 70% within 28 days.
Corporate geographical information systems director Marcelle Hatting said the city’s land information system would provide a central ”property” hub containing property related data.
Systems such as billing would also feed off the hub. — Sapa