T

he Johannesburg Property Company (JPC) is partnering with the South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa) in a municipal property development project valued at R12-billion, which aims to enhance the use of municipal-owned land within the City of Johannesburg’s (CoJ’s) jurisdiction.

The partnership announcement comes ahead of Sapoa’s fiftieth anniversary of the Convention & Property Exhibition, to be held on June 21 to 23 at the Sandton Convention Centre. The exhibition will be held in Johannesburg for the first time, after previous editions were held at the Durban and Cape Town international convention centres, as well as at Sun City.

The primary initiative of the partnership is the Office Space Optimisation (OSO) programme, which aims to enhance commercial, public and private offices, as well as retail and hotel spaces, among other developments.

The proposed roll-out of the OSO programme is between 10 to 15 years, with certain initiatives having already started.

The JPC describes the OSO project as a service- and people-orientated revitalisation strategy aimed at stimulating economic value for the CoJ and its residents. The project will result in spatial and social transformation that will accelerate service delivery to unite and empower communities.

“The question that we regularly ask ourselves is: How do we partner with the various property stakeholders and communities to ensure the growth, maintenance, protection, restoration and development of council properties, both vacant and improved . . . to achieve economic, financial and transformation objectives?” says JPC CEO Helen Botes.

The CoJ owns about 30 000 parcels of land, covering 77 809 ha, with a collective municipal value of R 8.7-billion and a market value of more than R35-billion.

The OSO programme is an “ambitious” plan to restructure the city using investment in its own offices as a catalyst for redevelopment, states the JPC. The programme will leverage more than 900 000 m2 of new developments in seven CoJ precincts.

Each of the CoJ’s seven precincts will be planned and delivered in accordance with the principles of “new urbanism” and will include mixed-use, transit-orientated and work-creational developments aligned with the CoJ’s “corridors of freedom”.

Roll-out of the OSO programme has begun with the refurbishment of the existing metropolitan centre precinct, incorporating the redevelopment of the CoJ’s council chamber. The design of the chamber is modelled on the circular lekgotla – which means meeting place – concept.

This concept will also be applied to the adjoining ‘people’s square’ – a social and convenient place for the residents of Johannesburg, which includes extensive retail and public amenities.

In the past 40 years, Botes says the CoJ has operated from Metro Centre, in Braamfontein, adding that requirements to facilitate more personnel in the Metro Centre and the council chamber have increased, owing to more staff and councillors filling positions, while the infrastructure has not. The offices that sufficed for the staff numbers at the time have not increased accordingly. We are going to help grow the capacity through the OSO programme.”

The new council chamber, which will remain the hub of the project, which will have all seven regions as branches in the provision of JPC’s offering. “This model will centralise municipal service offerings and bring services to the people,” she adds.

The OSO programme includes the construction of medium-rise buildings that will add 170 000 m2 of office space. They will carry a five-star rating that is aligned with the Green Star South Africa rating system of the Green Building Council of South Africa.

The new buildings will also incorporate smart infrastructure that will link them to other regional precincts in the Johannesburg region.

To ensure localisation is boosted, JPC has allocated about 30% of the total construction value to small, medium-sized and micro-enterprises, thereby creating more than 100 000 temporary jobs. It will also raise the living standards and quality of life for all the people of Gauteng, according to the JPC.

Botes points out that the OSO programme also aims to construct about 2 000 public toilets throughout the Johannesburg region. These toilets will be concentrated in areas of high pedestrian traffic, such as public transport hubs and informal-trader hot spots.

Sapoa CEO Neil Gopal says projects like the OSO programme contribute greatly to the gross domestic product of Gauteng and assist in creating jobs.