Marlboro South Industrial Organisation

"...it is quite clear that the residents of Alexandra cannot engage with their surrounding economies and what it is resulting in, is an isolation of Alexandra, so that it doesn't integrate economically into the surrounding area. To address that we are going to have to look at a range of initiatives, focusing mainly on skills development in that particular area to close the gap to the extent that that is possible, but also encourage appropriate business activities to locate in that particular area".

"In terms of management capacity the issues there are to broaden government's capacity, both the managerial and implementation levels within the council and to work with the council. The intention is not to duplicate what the council is doing, the idea is to build sustainable government systems in the area.
The second strategy, and it is deliberately not housing, it is the economy. Based on all the issues that we've seen, if we don't focus on the economy, we are going to create more problems than we are going to solve . So here we are looking at local government development. The first issue there is to get consensus... there needs to be certain work in relation to economic precincts, and the main ones which have been targeted for work here, is... to redevelop that, that is really the CBD for Alexandra and secondly, to look at the Marlboro south industrial park. At the moment because of the warehouse occupations businesses are leaving the area and that is exacerbating the already high unemployment rate for Alex. "

GAUTENG PROVINCIAL LEGISLATURE HOUSING COMMITTEE TRANSCRIPT January 2001

Marlboro Precinct Plan which is an ARP "vision" to take Marlboro South Industrial (45.7 hectares) and make the landowners fund 1/3 of it as a business park (close it off). Those whose properties do not fall within the business park are advised to buy land within the park, and the rest of Marlboro should be used as Mixed Land Use. According to the REGIONAL SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK (RSDF) CITY OF JOHANNESBURG : ADMINISTRATIVE REGION 7 : JUNE 2003 the meaning of mixed land use is as follows:

The Overall Business Plan aims to create, "...a well-managed residential suburb offering an acceptable living environment with manageable densities and a sound tax base". The Plan proposes the "incremental upgrading of the existing physical, social and environmental milieu" with some new housing stock. The document handed out at the "Alexandra Summit" contained a very long "wish list" of all the extras - training, cultural, health and other building s and programmes - that will be needed to make the resultant community work. Who the residents will be is ignored except that it will be those already in Alexandra. The wish list does not accord them much get and go!

The difficulty with the plan is that it echoes the past. It is about housing upgrade and township renewal. It focuses on Alexandra and its present population, largely poor and mainly unemployed, mostly transient, and with very low skills. It is also wracked by crime. The plan glosses over the virulent gulf that exists within Alexandra between the established families, now a small minority, the illegal rent lords, and the majority of low skilled transients and illegal migrants who are the latter's powerless clients and criminal foot soldiers.

The Plan is not about today's city, its aims, opportunities and strategies and what it has to do to succeed. The Plan avoids discussion of how the present mainly poorly equipped residents of Alexandra are to be accommodated economically within the city and the role of Alexandra and its residents (present people or a different set) in the city's plans.

The plan ignores the fact that Alexandra occupies prime land within the most valuable piece of Africa 's global economy. Its future must reflect that, at least, since a central aim is to create freehold title which means tradable properties. The plan never asks what the value of the land is and what profile the residents should fit given land values and the demands and opportunities of the surrounding economy. Without that, it is impossible for the Plan to consider the future role of Alexandra in the surrounding global economy and within the wider city. As a result, it is unable to consider how Johannesburg should treat Alexandra as the enormous asset that it is. It is neither a problem nor a liability unless thinking fails to move on. Properly conceived, it is an opportunity to put the pieces of a dynamic Johannesburg jigsaw together.

There is no price anywhere in the document, no sense of investment value or of alternate uses, no financial flows, no opportunity cost, no sense of who and when and for what purposes certain types of people will drive a resurgent Alexandra. There is nothing in the Plan on which to hang or to test a concept other than township upgrade.

The key issues the "Overall Business Plan" must address to be acceptable on city terms are listed below. The plan answers none of them.

What is required is City, not Township Planning.
How will the residents of the new Alexandra come to fit the skill requirements of the surrounding global economy, afford rents that relate to Alexandra's location and land value, and be entrepreneurial enough to take advantage of any new Alexandra city centre commercial and market space, creating a vibrant mostly small scale internal economy?
It will require the exodus of at least 150,000 people to bring the density of Alexandra down to manageable proportions. How will that be done? How many will require / can claim state provided alternate housing and at what cost and where would they go? That scale of relocation is not part of the approved budget. How can that programme be developmental and financially dynamic? Can it make the housing market work in the townships so that established city families trapped in those non-functioning areas can escape? More people than the numbers game dictates might have to leave to make room for better equipped residents to move into Alexandra.
How will the plan determine who gets what and goes where and on what terms? Or will prices rule and inform and thus will people make choices for themselves by matching recorded rights and their values, altering over time, as against known opportunities and costs? If the former, administrative determination, will the programme bog down in personal / group positioning and recrimination?
The Plan has to be an investment in a better city, not just a state expenditure plan to upgrade existing poorly skilled residents.
The large opportunity cost, the various options that R1.5 billion cash plus R3.6 billion land value, or R5.1 billion, represents, must be explored on city terms.
The law states that the residents of Johannesburg own the city along with the Council. They will want to know how the land value of Alexandra, around R3.6 billion, is to be unlocked to city advantage.
If the land and cash asset is R5.1 billion, what prices will future rents command and what role is there for other investors / developers / owners? Preliminary figures suggest that Alexandra could attract R6 billion additional investment over ten years. For that to happen, it has to be driven by a vision that is greater than township upgrade!
If the Plan is followed, once title is given to individuals with little capacity to "make it" economically, developers are likely to buy them out at big discounts under distress sales, unlocking for themselves the un-priced land value. Alexandra will then be knocked down 5 to 10 years hence and rebuilt according to market values. The city will loose the R3.6 billion land value.
It is known that economically active if "small" people do often pay high rents per sq.m. because they use little space intensely. A rebuilt Alexandra can attract and reward a densely settled community with good amenities if the residents fit the opportunities for jobs and for local business and service activity the region and the area can provide.
What institutional / management / investment model will achieve all the above requirements?