Public participation for redevelopment sites for carbon neutral development recommended

Statement by the City’s Executive Mayor, Patricia de Lille

Today, 15 August 2018, the City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee recommended that Council authorise a public participation process in terms of the Municipal Asset Transfer Regulations (MATR) to make a number of sites in the metro available for redevelopment via a competitive process for the purpose of carbon neutral development.

This proposed redevelopment of the sites forms part of the City’s commitment to the Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) Reinventing Cities initiative.

Cape Town is a proud member of the C40, an international organisation created as a forum for cities to share strategies for reducing carbon emissions and spurring global action in confronting climate change.

C40 connects more than 90 of the world’s greatest cities and its membership represents over 650 million people and one quarter of the global economy.

Given the number of properties that are proposed to make available for carbon neutral development, some of which are considered high value assets, the MATR accordingly requires Council’s authority to commence with public participation.

The four sites identified for this purpose are the Civic Centre Woodstock sidecar park, the Mouquet farm in Diep River, the Ottery site and the Bishop Lavis Town Centre site.
The redevelopment of these sites to allow for low carbon or carbon neutral demonstration projects would also strongly support the City’s Transit Oriented Development Strategic Framework.

The Reinventing Cities is an international open competition initiated by C40 to stimulate innovative carbon neutral developments across the globe and to implement the best ideas to transform underutilised sites into beacons of sustainability and resiliency and act as a showcase for future zero-carbon urban developments.
This is to happen through an international call for development proposals for identified underutilised sites by open competitive tender invitation.
Bids received will be assessed and awarded in line with the specific legislation that applies locally in the particular participating cities, as well as specific environmental criteria.

The Reinventing Cities initiative aims to:

• help drive public policy making to support decarbonised, sustainable, intelligent and resilient Cities
• support the implementation of new ideas and innovations that can be rolled-out on a global scale
• actively drive collaboration between the private and public sectors to deliver new approaches to delivering low carbon urbanisation and
• reduce the impact of emissions due to new green buildings (as buildings account for a large percentage of emissions in C40 member cities)

To adhere to the Paris agreement, cities require new buildings to be as close to zero carbon as possible and existing buildings need high levels of retrofitting.
Projects selected through the Reinventing Cities initiative will serve as a model for carbon neutral development. These projects must demonstrate innovative climate solutions, provide local community benefits and must be able to be replicated in cities around the world.

Each project is to be developed on publicly-owned land, showcasing how partnerships between cities and the private sector can work to shape a carbon neutral future.

Development proposals would therefore need to address aspects that contribute towards a carbon neutral project, such as energy efficiency, resiliency, water management, mobility and transit orientation, waste management, sustainable building materials, among others.

Cape Town’s commitment to participate in the C40 Reinventing Cities initiative is subject to Council considering the input from the public participation process and thereafter making the identified sites available in principle for such redevelopment purposes.