The South African Planning Institute

To all SAPI members,

Warm greetings. Hope you are well!

It is my great pleasure to inform you that the website is on and active: www.sapi.org.za. Members who have paid their annual fees for 2022 can access Certificates through the Website Portal. We urge members who haven’t paid their annual fees to pay in order to receive the latest Certificate.

Let’s take advantage of the website portal and share any Planning information.





Yours in planning

Johannes Mulaudzi

SAPI President

https://sapi.org.za/

SAPI mourns the passing of Professor Vanessa Watson.

Edgar Pieterse, Director of The African Centre for Cities has written an article detailing the life and work of Professor Watson. To read the article, click the link below:

Forging theory with bite: A reflection on Vanessa Watson’s contribution to the African Centre for Cities - African Centre for Cities Forging theory with bite: A reflection on Vanessa Watson’s contribution to the African Centre for Cities Edgar Pieterse, Vanessa Watson, 15 September 2021 African Centre for Cities (ACC) Director Edgar Pieterse, reflects on Vanessa Watson’s contribution to ACC,  planning and urban studies at la...

Dear Planners / Stakeholders in the Planning Sector

We will be hosting our AGM during October 2021 and the outcomes of this should inform the incoming Exco and Board.

Please oblige us by completing the survey below and returning to us by 30 September 2021.

South African Planning Institute Feedback Survey Name:, Email:, Phone:

Policies are a big debate in this session.

Location: Gauteng Spatial Transformation Seminar

“New challenges include growth in backyardshacks”

By: Christian Hamann

Location: Gauteng Spatial Transformation Seminar

‪The Gauteng Spatial Transformation Seminar is underway, guests have arrived ‬

Below is a link to the Gauteng Seminar Programme.

Seats still available, book on our website.

Gauteng Seminar Planning Africa

Press Release: Spatial transformation Seminars

President Cyril Ramaphosa is admired for rallying citizens through the State of the National Address to be bold, reach beyond ourselves and dream of cities with adequate housing, job opportunities, public transport and places of education and health, given that seventy-five percent of South Africans will be living in urban areas by 2030. The South African Planning Institute is willing to be a strategic partner to the Presidency in mainstreaming, delivering and developing the capability for spatial transformation and envisaging a desired future.

We have identified the intensification of skilling to implement the new focus on sustainable spatial development as highlighted in the National Development Plan, Integrated Urban Development Framework and National Spatial Development Framework as the biggest challenge on how best to accelerate spatial transformation and improve the quality of places.

We welcome the President’s invitation to imagine what our future cities should look like. SAPI has arranged Spatial Transformation seminars in ten cities in South Africa from July to November 2019.

Spatial transformation going forward must address the apartheid spatial legacy and fully embrace new spatial practices in respect of sustainability, liveability, resilience and facilitate technological innovation and economic structural change. The aim of spatial transformation is explicitly to address the empowerment of most of the population impacted by historical spatial displacement and ongoing exclusion and inequality. The following wide-ranging initiatives require an approach that shifts the paradigm from disjointed planning to a single prism that takes the context of the socio-economic conditions and opportunities facing different areas:
(i) improve the existing places where people are living,
(ii) create new spatially and economically vibrant growth points,
(iii) create new opportunities for people to move into more central locations, and
(iv) create better linkages between Places through safe, efficient and affordable public transportation.

This all means that planners will have to influence and capacitate a whole new radical approach in property development, public transportation, and transit-oriented development.

Planning capability will have to be extended and advanced in three main areas:

(i) Design and application of Legislative Instruments – Designing, implementing and enforcing policy and legislative instruments and tools to facilitate subsidised and affordable housing integration in linkage corridors and existing high value precincts and neighbourhoods; and facilitating sustainable human settlements in general.

(ii) Inclusive Place-Making - Spatial structuring, design and planning to enhance urban form, integration, efficiency, liveability, and sustainability of places at various scales with a focus on social and economic inclusion.

(iii) Economics & Finance – Socio-Economic Cost-Benefit analysis; feasibility studies based on market realities, attractiveness and trends; financial viability of spatial interventions; and financial resourcing of projects.

There is a massive need to transform our existing cities into spatially inclusive spaces. This can be done through more visionary approaches to densification, vibrant affordable mixed-use development, public space making and mass transit light rail systems. There may well be a need for new cities, however there are ample opportunities to transform places like Soweto, Tembisa, Umlazi, Kwa Mashu, Mdantsane, Khayelitsha and Gugulethu into fully fledged compact cities with smart technologies.

We need to leapfrog urban development by deconstructing and reframing seemingly “problematic” concepts and instruments. We all need to be clear about what the South African version of a smart city is! We at SAPI believe it is first and foremost a city which addresses the apartheid space-economy regardless of whether it is brownfield or greenfield developments. We are convening our profession and built environment stakeholders with government to take it forward through a shared vision, identified projects and agreed compact within the framework of spatial transformation in our Spatial Transformation Seminars www.planningafrica.org.za

We look forward to the support the implementation of well-considered policy recommendations emanating from existing and approved public policy documents and we are available to be a constructive partner in this enormous and visionary task.

Issued for:
Itumeleng Nkoane
PRESIDENT: THE SOUTH AFRICAN PLANNING INSTITUTE

Contact Tshepo Moorosi 061 130 7265
Email: [email protected]

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PLANNING AFRICA CONFERENCE - Home SAPI thanks all sponsors, exhibitors, the host and co-hosts, speakers, presenters, delegates, volunteers and service providers who made the 8th Planning Africa Conference a resounding success.

Registrations for “The SAPI Spatial Transformation Seminars 2019” are open at www.planningafrica.org.za

Registrations for “The SAPI Spatial Transformation Seminars 2019” are open at www.planningafrica.org.za.

The seminars will take place in 10 cities in South Africa from the 12 July to 22 November 2019 focussing on Spatial Transformation, the Role of the Planner and the Importance of Planning
The New Urban Agenda and the International Guidelines-Territorial Urban Development elevated the role and importance of planners. There are policy instruments in place in South Africa which are more advanced than most countries. It is possible to plan a sustainable future in South Africa, if the requisite skills and resources are allocated to developing the urban character and form.
The IDP developed by local municipalities collates the needs of communities and is meant to be an integrated plan while the NDP as a national plan and vision influences strategies being developed or implemented by all spheres of government. In terms of land use management there is SPLUMA, in terms of strategic planning there are the Spatial Development Frameworks from local to national, there is the IUDF, but is the state leading this process coherently? Is there consistency to reshape the form of localities with integrated approaches to planning? Do these processes allow for the budget allocations and resources for the spatial form to be adjusted and influenced?
South Africa has not transformed the spatial form from apartheid plans to a post-apartheid future. State capture, limited resources and an ever-growing list of priorities hamper the efforts to co-ordinate and build a process of spatially targeted delivery. Formal Planning is playing catch up with people-centred development, linked to land and development leading to informality in settlements and economic activity, and at the same time, development is being led by market forces which is determining where development takes place be it for resource extraction or for high end living or for commercial purposes without the state playing a decisive role on spatial and economic transformation.
To register visit www.planningafrica.org.za

‪Our outgoing president Nthato Minyuku speaking of “Shaping The Future Of The Planning Profession To Lead Spatial Transformation In South Africa” ‬