The City of Ekurhuleni won two coveted awards at the South Africa Planning Institute Planning (SAPI) Awards 2016, last week.
The City walked away with Best Mentorship Programme Award for its role in mentoring students of the University of Venda and Best Municipal Plan Award for the development of the city’s Spatial Development Framework.
The SAPI Awards focus on all municipalities and metros within the southern African region.
In terms of the mentorship programme, the City mentored 20 students in 2014 over a five-day period on a precinct planning exercise for the Dries Niemand and Tembisa civic nodes.
This exercise was to assist the third-year students with a metropolitan planning course in a metropolitan municipality.
“We have taken a step in shaping our future planners and expanded their practical knowledge on spatial planning-related issues,” said head of City Planning, Motubatse Motubatse.
“They learnt how to research and develop precinct plans for the selected two precincts, which was included into their semester marks.”
In 2015, over a five-day period, the city mentored 30 students on the precinct area of Palm Ridge Court.
The officials provided the planning students with sound expertise and the experience was coupled with tours of the City, OR Tambo Airport and Gautrain.
The second award, Best Municipal Plan Award, gave confidence to the development of the Metropolitan Spatial Development Framework of the City and its spatial trajectory as aligned to the GDS.
The Metropolitan Spatial Development Framework (MSDF), approved in 2015, is a planning structuring strategic tool that guides development and investment within the City.
Metropolitan Spatial Development Framework introduced and placed emphasis on spatial structuring elements (fixed Urban Edge), nodal developments, corridors and the mining belt, all incorporated under sustainable planning which reduces urban sprawl.
The MSDF provides tactics relevant for spatial transformation.
This is emphasised by the integration of the disadvantaged communities into the urban fabrics through developments on vacant land located close to CBDs and industrial areas.
