For Buffalo City Metro (BCM) to harvest the goodwill generated at the Buffalo City Investment Conference, hosted by Buffalo City Metro Development Agency, developers and investors need quicker access to projects, a clean city, and a streamlined development application processes, which currently can stretch to years.
These demands reflected the delegates’ sentiments over the two-day conference which ended at the weekend.
Leslie Flick, director of special projects at InvestSA, a division of Department of Trade and Industry said the solution to tardy applications was almost in place.
BCM is poised to embrace the “One Stop Shop” (OSS) concept, said Fick.
The aim of OSS was for developers and investors to have one access point by providing their application documents to one office for quick results, with the full package of permissions.
“Nationally we have three offices, and we are opening another with East London Development Corporation, which starts in March,” he said.
Fick said it was fortuitous that BCM was ready to start its own OSS, which will allow it to correct one of the biggest hurdles to investing and developing in East London.
Izak Peterson, chief executive of Dipula Income Fund, with R9bn worth of funds under management, said East London is not an attractive investment opportunity.
“Frankly, the city is the dirtiest that I have visited,” said Peterson, who travels extensively in Africa for new investments.
“It must get its basics right. Investors will only go to cities that have the potential to boom.”
BCM is also, said Peterson, the second most expensive city where Dipula is invested.
“The rates are too high. Coupled with that, is as a company, we are paying for services that we are not getting. East London deserves better. The basic infrastructure is failing, roads, sewage. Crime is too high. Fix the basics, which is an easy task.”
Peterson said aside from the basic cleanliness it took too long to get developments off the ground. “We purchased a developed property recently. It took the seller 11 years to get permission to start,” he said.
City of Johannesburg’s Lawrence Boya drives the “Smart City” development programme. “Cities need to make use of mobilised technology to enhance service delivery,” Boya said.
He said that East London was not grasping the opportunity. “Why are BCM department managers not at this conference to listen to what investors need?”
By 2030 there will be 400,000 students without accommodation, and it was a “huge opportunity”, said Willem Steenkamp, the executive head of strategic initiatives in the Housing Development Agency (HAD), which is part of Human Settlements.
“Government will shortly announce changes in laws on student accommodation which will change the model for developers. HAD has land available, which it has acquired mainly from government and municipalities.
“We offer it to developers, and then work with them on projects, from greenfield to completion.”..