The City of Joburg is on a drive to get residents’ input for next year’s integrated development plans.
This annual exercise is a consultative process at this time of year in every region to ensure that residents and other stakeholders participate in determining their spatial development needs. City officials, community leaders, residents and business review the implementation of the previous year’s development plans and capital expenditure, and schedules approved new projects for the next year.
In terms of the IDP guidelines, the drive ensures to validate and achieve council’s 2040 growth and development strategy implemented through a five-year programme and project cycles that are reviewed annually. The programmes are on good governance to ensure progressive service delivery; economic growth through recurrent and innovative businesses and income-generating initiatives; human and social development through improved social, health and safety conditions and social inclusion, as well as sustainable services through structural changes to promote equality and access to economic opportunities and resources.
The planning process is informed by demographic and socio-economic factors.
They include:
- The City’s increasing population from 4.4 million at the last count in 2011.
- A growth rate higher than other municipalities.
- A 37.1 percent of young and dependent people between 20 and over 64 years.
- A sex ratio of 100.7 in favour of males, [signifying its migrant status].
- Predominance of youths between 20 and 39 years.
- A decrease from 40 to 24.7 percent from the last decade in people living below the poverty line.
- The highest level of inequality compared to other metros.
- Improvement from 29 to 36 percent in the number of matriculants.
These factors informed the previous ward based planning process which led to the city allocating R50 million for 42 capex community projects for the development and maintenance of public spaces, park development, vegetable gardens, construction of buy back centres, street calming measures, renovation of recreational centres, tarring and upgrading of gravel roads. Other financial injections have run into billions of rands-supported projects under the corridors of freedom including the BRT, housing and bulk infrastructure, jozi@work supporting community work packages, innovative and digital projects, the green and blue economy which supported the green financing mechanism, asphalt recycling, energy efficiency, food security and the smart city initiatives including smart meters, applications, wifi hotspots and youth ICT training.
The schedule of consultative meetings for Region E is available from councillors and the regional office.
Details: Region E 011 582 210 8854.
