The underbelly of the Berea : Challenges to orthodox planning for the creation of sustainable suburban neighbourhoods in South Africa

Sustainable neighbourhood development is a global urban planning policy concern for the 21st century. In the global South, these concerns persist alongside increasing population and poverty levels in cities. In South Africa’s established former apartheid neighbourhoods, the challenges of creating sustainable neighbourhoods from the current post-colonial neighbourhood are unclear and contradictory. Former largely mono-functional suburban neighbourhoods of the apartheid period are undergoing changes in form, function and demography. Using the case of Berea suburban neighbourhood in the metropolitan city of eThekwini (Durban), the article explores the responsiveness of orthodox land-use planning to sustainable neighbourhood change from 1994. It focuses on a historical review of orthodox planning vis-à-vis recent policy and land-use change dynamics in the Berea. Data used include a content analysis of the Berea General Plans from 1857, Town Planning Schemes and related documents, purposively selected interviews, observations, GIS mapping of planning applications, and analysis based on South African demographic census data from 2001 to 2011. The article concludes that former largely monofunctional orthodox suburban neighbourhood planning is insufficiently responsive to heterogeneity trends on the Berea.


INTRODUCTION
This article critiques the legacy of orthodox modern neighbourhood planning in the context of postapartheid South Africa suburban neighbourhood change and planning.Using the Berea suburb in the metropolitan city of eThekwini (Durban), the case study explores the responsiveness of neighbourhood scaled orthodox planning to post-apartheid sustainable cityplanning policies and dynamics.The Berea, some 2000 hectares, located adjacent to the west of the Inner City, is a former apartheid neighbourhood in the city of Durban which falls under the planning and administrative jurisdiction of present-day eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality.Typical of South African suburban neighbourhoods developed during the colonial and apartheid era, urban planning of the Berea was based on modern 'orthodox' suburban planning principles that were infused with racial segregation and class stratification, resulting in enduring urban and neighbourhood spatial inequalities.
From 1994, planning in the city of Durban and the Berea, in particular, occurs in the context of Integrated Development Planning (IDP).As a process, IDP is a local policy manifestation of Agenda 21, the United Nations global policy framework action plan for promoting sustainable development in different localities across the globe.The IDP, as the plan outcome, seeks to promote the creation of sustainable human settlements through mixed Iand usage, racial and income mix of the population and good local governance, among other measures.This is reflected in the local government legislative framework by the Local Government Municipal Systems Act (No. 32 of 2000), which compels every municipality in South Africa to prepare IDPs to guide development within their administrative jurisdictions (RSA, 2000).The study analyses the spatial transformation and sustainability agenda that has impacted on the material and social conditions of citizens on the Berea, and, in particular, on how land-use management shapes the dynamics of urban transformation.According to Mabin and Smit (1997: 197), during the First World War, planning in South Africa had to respond to rising costs, housing shortages and the growth of slums in cities.It was also in a context where outbreaks of tuberculosis and influenza, in 1914 and 1919, respectively, were blamed on Blacks living in slums (Maylam, 1995).Parnell (1993: 472-473) and Maylam (1995: 27) identify the role of planning as part of public health concerns in the early racial frameworks of segregation.Maylam (1995: 27) Jacobs, 1961;Lefebvre, 1996;Harvey, 2016).Since the second half of the 20 th century, in both post-modern and post-colonial city contexts, orthodox modern planning has also been critiqued for its relative unresponsiveness to heterogeneity of city populations and economies.

SUSTAINABILITY AND PLANNING: DEFINITIONS AND DOMAINS
In post-apartheid South Africa, for instance, orthodox neighbourhood planning has been under scrutiny for its lack of receptiveness to the policy of creating sustainable human settlements through densification, mixed land use, racial and income mix of the population, among other measures (Dewar & Uytenbogaardt 1991;Harrison, 2002: 6).Notably, Jacobs (1961: 143)

SOUTH AFRICAN POLICY AND LEGISLATIVE CONTEXT OF THE STUDY: SHIFTING AMBIGUITIES
The establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910 is widely regarded as the period in which orthodox modernist planning was introduced, infused with racial segregation intentions of the colonial government (Mabin & Smit, 1997: 196) Brown, 2000: 155).While the case study area of the Berea, unlike Durban North, does not show direct Garden City principles, the influences on elements of layout are evident in land-use arrangements.
The apartheid era from 1948 onwards saw the intensification of orthodox modern planning in cities, using the "exclusionary logic of apartheid spatial form" defined by racial spatial segregation and the implementation of the Group Areas Act (No. 41 of 1950), which compelled legal racial spatial segregation in cities and towns (Harrison et al., 2007: 24).Zoning provided the main planning mechanism to implement segregation.Different races (Whites, Blacks, Coloureds and Indians) were allocated different residential zones in cities and towns that were peripherally located from the city, serving mainly the needs of industry, and separated by physical environmental features such as green belts, highways, or industrial zones, that acted as buffer zones.The White racial group was mostly located in suburban residential locations relatively close to the city centre, and enjoyed the amenity of orthodox neighbourhood planning principles.
Planning in exclusively White residential areas was informed by the Garden City movement and orthodox planning.Provisions were made for land-use zoning for housing densities and height, land-use controls, where the provision of facilities such as parks, schools and hospitals and the physical planning design were in line with the neighbourhood planning concept.With the collapse of the apartheid administration in South Africa in 1994, orthodox modern planning came under intensified scrutiny (Harrison et al., 2007: 39-40).The focus changed from the creation of relatively mono-functional settlements to promoting compact city ideas and principles of new urbanism as pioneered in South Africa by Dewar and Uytenbogaardt (1991).This, in turn, placed attention on the receptiveness and adaptability of the orthodox planning system to complex challenges of spatial transformation of cities and towns to the new settlement discourses at a neighbourhood level.

FINDINGS
As  , 1952) along with the first city-wide zoning notation map (see Figure 2).In December 1952, the City Council adopted an amended report that extracted from the 1950 report those issues relating to residential matters and was entitled "    (Iyer Design Studio, 2012b;Iyer Design Studio, 2013).
The revised plan for the Berea highlights that penetrating new and other uses "challenges the existing scheme and current infrastructure" (Iyer Design Studio, 2012a: 11).The new vision and land-use framework for the Berea, spelt out in the Berea Urban Core Extension Policy of 2012, created a plan to inform the preparation of the proposed new Scheme.However, despite attempts to advertise and revise the new Scheme, some four years later, the proposals were not adopted and the 1973 amended Scheme persists.Furthermore, it is worth noting that, although the Berea Urban Core Plan has not been formally adopted, it is being used as an informant document for statutory applications in this area.

Finding 2: Analysis of landuse dynamics
The A key limitation to the Register is that public space and, specifically, informality in public spaces are not captured under property descriptions.
Observations were used to overcome the shortcomings and supplement the study.The study also compared the 2005 GIS built form survey with an updated survey from 2015 to identify the distribution of floor area changes shown in Figure 3.

Contraventions
Contraventions of land use are reported to eThekwini Municipality, either as public complaints or by officials, and identified as uses not permitted under the planning scheme.Almost one quarter of the contraventions are shown as illegal uses, 10% relate to student accommodation and a further 10% as informal activities (spaza shops and taverns).The remainder relate to site-specific complaints impacting on amenity.The concentration of contraventions, in the neighbourhood of Bulwer (40%) and Glenwood (10%), is significant during the data period shown in Figure 4. Pressure for land-use change is being expressed in Bulwer and Glenwood and depicts pent-up demand for relatively affordable commercial access to land markets.It was also observed that residential stock is being eroded to commercial and office use rather than mixed use.
Significantly, the push for densification as a way of achieving one of the normative planning principles within the new planning framework, was ushered in with the changing of political leadership in the city in 2007.This has presented a key challenge to orthodox planning, as the normative base of densification is not accommodated in the planning standards.
The following types of activities associated with densification were observed and shown in Figure 3 and 4: • On the edges of the Berea, in existing public housing stock, that is informal and somewhat unregulated, for example, police housing/military personal, and other public sector workers.• Close to institutions, for example universities.Both higher education institutions in the eThekwini municipality are home to some of their campuses on the Berea, and host some 55 000 students.This represents a significant increase of take-up in higher education over the years.It can be argued that enrolment planning for students has not been matched with the necessary residential infrastructure, hence an increase in densification around student accommodation both provided by the institutions and the private sector letting market.It is not uncommon for up to six students to be renting two-bedroomed flats, or for sub-letting university residences.• New opportunities through the densification strategy, as shown in Figure 3, indicating increased floor area, and that is largely market driven.

Approved business applications
The type of business applications relates to fast-food outlets, restaurants, tuck shops, taverns, supermarkets, bed and breakfast, student accommodation, guest houses, gambling outlets, as shown in Figure 5.These applications tend to be concentrated in the local entertainment corridors of Helen Joseph (Davenport) Road, Florida Road and Lillian Ngoyi (Windermere) Road, where restaurants, fast-food outlets and pubs tend to agglomerate.
In the interview on 1 March 2016, Parker (Regional Coordinator within the Land Use Management Branch, eThekwini Municipality) confirmed that the establishment of late night entertainment, including night clubs and music venues, in these areas has been met with resistance from local residential areas and created challenges for the city officials.
The above findings reflect landuse changes in established neighbourhoods and strip entertainment areas, without layering informal and temporal entertainment activities.

Types of planning applications
Applications for relaxations and special consent approvals are made in terms of the Scheme clauses, enacted by the KwaZulu-Natal Town Planning Ordinance of 1949, as amended.The majority of applications, 260 out of 354 (73%) relate to relaxations on plan submissions, including buildings line, height, coverage and FAR.Special consents, usually related to a land-use change, amounted to 74 of 260 (28%) of applications in the four-year period, using orthodox planning instruments and informed by orthodox assumptions, and are shown in Figure 6.There is also a contradiction between the normative principles of walkable and sustainable neighbourhoods and the use of orthodox instruments that measure planning applications according to parking requirements, for example.Hence, the planning Furthermore, the spread of applications across the Berea reflects a dynamic context of land-use and activities change, and questions the way in which applications are being assessed -orthodox or normative?This spatial distribution of applications also challenges the view that densification would only happen on the lower Berea in the general residential zones, as per the early Scheme assumptions, or along corridors, as identified in Figure 6.Durban is at a moment where normative planning concepts based on a set of principles, particularly those related to sustainability, are being introduced into the planning framework.These frameworks stand in contrast to Schemes, steeped in orthodox planning concepts such as neighbourhood planning and planning standards with entrenched assumptions on who constitutes the neighbourhood.As neighbourhoods change, residential stock is depleted, commercial stock encroaches, residential occupancy rates fluctuate, and informality grows.Thus, the need to reflect and be more responsive to neighbourhood change is more urgent.(R30 7601 and above) makes up just over 19% of the whole.

FINDING 3: DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE BEREA
Table 5 shows that there was a significant increase in households with no income, a development that could be alluded to the increase in the number of students in the area, falling employment levels, and growth in the informal sector.On the other hand, there were also increases in households in the middle-to high-income categories, suggesting growing inequalities.This research points to some of the inadequacies of changing land uses without revisiting the assumptions of who is being planned for and changing household, demographic, and occupancy rates on the Berea.

DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
In post-1994 South Africa, orthodox planning tools for suburban neighbourhood planning have failed to significantly transform and respond to planning policy discourses that promote sustainable integrated city neighbourhoods as well as current neighbourhood dynamics.
In line with broader international and national planning aims of promoting compact sustainable neighbourhoods, the Berea Urban Core Extension planning initiative has sought to promote an integrated multi-functional Berea suburban neighbourhood.However, the findings suggest a lethargic response to realising this vision on the Berea, partly because the city has failed to adopt its revised Consolidated Central Scheme that was published in 2014, but has not been adopted.The contradictions between the orthodox planning scheme in use on the Berea and the current planning policy trajectories and dynamics underscore that planning tools in the scheme are insufficiently responsive to current changes in built environment form and function emerging from demographic shifts in the area.Demographic shifts towards an increase in student population, number of households, emergence of bigger households with more than 4 to 10 people, households with no income, and the diversity of racial and income group mix has brought about built environment forms and functions that are considered to be in contravention of the scheme.These relate to multi-functional usage of The impact of the demographic trajectories on land-use form and function are reflected in the rezoning applications and contraventions of the Berea Scheme.The findings identify that most of the contraventions of the Scheme have occurred in the context of increases in the densities of dwelling units, due to further subdivisions of houses outside the provisions of the Scheme, as well as changes from residential to commercial usage without the necessary approvals, as reflected in the distribution of contraventions plan.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The The main findings are that, prior to the introduction of Schemes, land use was managed through by-law regulation and title deed restrictions.Despite the progressive change to normative planning principles from 1994, orthodox land-use planning persists and is still the dominant mode for managing land-use regulations in parts of the city of Durban, and on the Berea, in particular.
A continuing challenge remains the difficulty of shifting from an orthodox planning system, based on fixed investments, to using transformative planning instruments for sustainable neighbourhood development with a more nuanced approach towards densification, working proactively with informality, and a collaborative approach with role players, among others.The point is that planners require a set of values and skills to support transformation.This is reinforced by our observations whereby contraventions to the Town Planning Scheme were recorded, in particular those relating to informality, densification, and contraventions to the Scheme.Transformation policy for sustainable neighbourhoods in post-colonial cities should be accompanied by the concurrent refinement of orthodox planning practices and tools to ensure smooth transitions based on the synergy between the planning tools and policy intentions.In the case of the Berea, unresolved contradictions are apparent between a scheme that uses orthodox planning tools for the creation of amenity, on the one hand, and policy intentions towards sustainable integrated suburban development, on the other.
This research has critiqued the Durban Scheme on the Berea for the absence of an appropriately neighbourhood-scaled spatial plan to inform land-use changes, as well as the absence of frequently revised plans to inform scheme revisions.While land uses are being changed, prompted by applications, the policy framework to inform the changes is insufficiently directive, resulting in ad hoc decisions.This research has shown that orthodox planning tools have been critiqued for their bluntness and lacking in nuanced responses to the existing context.
Whilst our study concentrated on the traditional suburb of the Berea, on the adjacent edges (Cato Manor, Sydenham, Overport) of what used to be African, Coloured and Indian group areas, there is a high degree of pressure relating to informality, densification, visible transgressions of planning controls, and so on.These represent zones of transition and opportunities for innovation, creativity and new practices for neighbourhood planning.Orthodox neighbourhood planning should take cognisance of trends towards increasing socio-economic and racial population mix, where these meet a localised expression of identity, demographic shifts and changes for sustainable neighbourhood goals to be realised.

Sleutelwoorde:
Beplanningsbeleid, fisiese vorm en funksie, informaliteit, omgewingsverandering, ortodokse beplanning, volhoubare omgewingsbeplanning noted earlier, the findings of the research are based on a review of the evolution of orthodox planning on the Berea, supported by analysis of land-use change applications, supplemented by unstructured interviews and recorded observations and, lastly, through demographic analysis of change on the Berea between 2001 and 2011.Land use was managed in the early development of the Berea, before modernist and orthodox planning instruments of the 1950s, through restrictive conditions on title deeds and by-laws.Specifically, those restrictive conditions referring to building types, building materials and servitudes provided the main instruments for managing land use.Durban depicted differential controls relating to race and class both within the Berea (lower and upper) and between areas such as the Point, Congella and central town.Prior to the 1950s, Durban had a myriad of regulations and by-laws for managing land use.In 1952, partly in response to consolidate residential regulations across the City and partly in response to the new planning legislation (Province of Natal, 1949), Durban prepared a report on regulation of building and control of land use (City of Durban

Figure 2 :Figure 3 :
Figure 2: First City of Durban Town Planning Zoning Plan, 1952 Source: Scan of Map from eThekwini Municipality, 2016

Figure 5 :
Figure 5: Distribution of business application on the Berea 2012-2016 Source: Adapted from eThekwini Municipality Central Durban Application Register by DUT GIS Unit, 2016 Rezoning applications, in terms of the Provincial planning legislation, the KwaZulu-Natal Planning and Development Act (No.6 of 2008) (PDA), tend to change both use and density controls, presenting a recent move on the part of the municipality towards densification of the Berea in line with the intentions of the Spatial Development Plan.However, these applications appear to be largely speculative, private sector-led rather than a reflection of the public interest and normative intentions.In the interview on 3 March 2016, Clarke (eThekwini Municipal Official) raised the challenge of reconciling the normative intentions of SPLUMA, especially in already built area, with implementing traffic and transport parking standards.Some precincts were considered more suitable than others for change.The intention of the more recent Berea plan (2012) is strongly normative, with elements of new urbanist principles related to developing "well contained, safe and secure residential neighbourhoods, well-structured open space systems, focus on human-scale mixed-use business clusters; and supportive public transport service"(Iyer  Design Studio, 2012b: 25).Areas of significant change in the plan are corroborated by this research and include substantial office conversion of existing residential housing stock, entrenchment of the Florida Road entertainment corridor, consolidation of the Helen Joseph (Davenport) Road entertainment strip and, more recently, the emergence of the Lillian Ngoyi (Windermere) Road local entertainment corridor.When interviewed on key land-use changes on 3 March 2017, Ferguson (Planning Consultant) noted the urban management improvements of the Florida Road Urban Improvement District (UIP) with visible policing and public maintenance, alongside the displacement of informal car guards to the Lillian Ngoyi (Windermere) Road strip some distance away.

Figure 6 :
Figure 6: Distribution of the type of planning applications on the Berea 2012-2016 Source: Adapted from eThekwini Municipality Central Durban Application Register by DUT GIS Unit, 2016.
As a reflection of the political context with the introduction of petty apartheid in 1948, the Durban land-use regulations, prepared by H.A. Smith, the City Engineer, Regulation of Land and Control of Land Use (Residential Areas) and Preparation of Town Planning Scheme" (Circular No. 561).The earlier report dated August 1950 was compiled by the City Engineer, Mr H.A. Smith, and framed the Town Planning Scheme under the Ordinance (No. 27 of 1949).The TPO (brought into effect in 1951) made provision for the preparation make mention of non-European servants' quarters with differentiated floor space.It could be argued that the recognition of servants' quarters was a method to entrench the discriminatory policies of the time relating to socio-economic segregation.The regulations bring class differentiation into the scheme.Figure 1: Locality plan of Berea Source: Map prepared by J. Kitching, 2017 Portions of the upper Berea are reserved for single dwelling houses, while specific areas are zoned for other residential buildings such as apartment houses, boarding, residential clubs, convalescent homes, flats, hotels, hospitals, institutional residential buildings, sanatoriums, and nursing homes (City of Durban, 1952: 3).In line with the implementation of apartheid through forced removals, the Group Areas Act, among other laws, and resultant public works programmes, the state also invested in public housing for government workers.The remnants of mixed institutional housing with private dwelling currently persists on the Berea, and are some of the areas where significant demographic, class and ethnic change is experienced, or what Schensul and Heller (2011b: 4) refer to as "residential racial mixing or desegregation".Largely influenced by the earlier 1952 regulations, the Berea Town Planning Scheme came into effect on 6 December 1954 and the 'Rezoning of the Berea' as was adopted (City of Durban, 1954).The Map of the Durban Scheme (within which the Berea forms a part), depicted in Figure 2, forms the basis of the 1953 Scheme, but the colours are an accumulation of amendments made through re-zonings for an unconfirmed period, which may have ended in the early 1960s.Differential land use by class and race is clearly evident in the Scheme, where direct reference to the Group Areas Act (No. 41 of 1950) is made and the western part of the Berea reserved for "Asiatic occupation" and the ridge line identified as suitable for "European occupation" (City of Durban, 1954: 10-11).Concepts such as the high Berea with larger plot sizes and protection from flat development was implemented above the McDonald, Brand, Bulwer, Botanic Gardens, Cowey, Gordon and Windermere Road line.The Town Planning Scheme also set aside substantial areas for parks, open space, schools and hospitals.The influence of garden-city ideas, centred on Berea (City of Durban, 1972: 397) and preparing consolidated Town Planning Regulations.The 1973 revision informed by the "City Engineers Report on Planning the Berea (1965)" contains Orthodox Planning tools such as planning standards and thresholds to guide the future development of the Berea.

Table 1 :
Sub-place names in the Berea area per ward

Table 2 :
Population by racial group in the Berea in 2001 and 2011

Table 3 :
Population by sex in the Berea in 2001 and 2011 Source: Stats SA, 2001; Stats SA, 2011

Table 4 :
Household size in 2001 and2011 research presented a review of matters relating to the planning, development and management of sustainable cities in the context of the Berea, in the city of Durban, by juxtaposing orthodox planning instruments against the realities of current land-use changes.It is noted that, while there is a broad understanding of what sustainable development is, there is no absolute agreement on its definition and