City proposes new renewal plan for Alex

Following the dismal failure of the of then Alexandra Renewal Project (ARP) to revitalise the core of old Alex, the City of Johannesburg plans to launch yet another renewal project for the township – known as the Urban Development Framework (UDF) or better known as the Master Plan for Alexandra (MPA).

Once formulated, the master plan will be implemented through the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), which swallowed the ARP a little more than a year ago. The ARP itself was dogged by controversy and never made any meaningful impact.

The City describes its master plan as an ‘important strategic document for Alexandra as it will not only direct proper spatial planning and sustainable development of the area, but will also assist with the mobilisation and securing of funding commitments across all three spheres of government’.

The master plan will contain broad aims across specific topics, such as housing, infrastructure, and community facilities which are reinforced by more detailed policies and objectives.

The City said it views community participation as an integral part of the formulation of the master plan and will ensure it has ‘a comprehensive and inclusive community participation process’ and, as a result, the City said the development agency has engaged a multi-disciplinary team of highly skilled professionals and community liaison officers of the former ARP to work with the community in creating the master plan.

It is yet to be seen how inclusive this process will be, as in the previous one, the ARP left out one of the biggest stakeholders – the landowners, under the umbrella body of the Alexandra Land and Property Owners Association (Alpoa). Hence, the ARP dismally failed to renew the core of Alex and preferred to build new settlement on the peripheries.

One of the biggest hindrances to the renewal of Alex is the failure by government to restore title deeds and property rights to stand owners which were usurped by the then apartheid regime in the 1970s. Alpoa has been involved in a struggle ever since to force government to restore the land and property rights in Alexandra, and a new process will have to take cognisance of this.

Already, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has heaped scorn on it, describing the new master plan as ‘an election gimmick’. The City’s sudden repackaging of an old and failed project for Alexandra must be viewed with suspicion, the DA’s Gauteng spokesperson on human settlements, Mervyn Cirota, said.

Cirota pointed out that a court interdict in 2008 taken against the City and others still stands and hence, there can never be any meaningful progress on this front – unless the fundamental issues raised in this interdict are addressed to the satisfaction of the applicants.