Evaluating the Sustainability of High-Density Affordability Housing Development in Alexandra, Johannesburg is the title of a recent paper I presented at the 2019 South African Energy Efficiency Confederation Conference in Pretoria. The paper critically evaluates a new housing development which includes a range of innovative strategies including Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), passive environmental control, modular structural and services design and Onsite Service Enterprises (OSE). The Sustainable Building Assessment Tool (SBAT) is used to carry out the review of the 18,000m2 mixed-use development near Alexandra, Johannesburg.

Increasing housing backlogs in all of the large cities of South African mean there is an urgent need to develop additional sustainable and affordable urban accommodation. Existing approaches suffer from high costs of development, poor locations, unaffordable rental or purchase costs, high utility costs and poor environmental impacts. A new development proposed for Alexandra, Johannesburg attempts to address these shortcomings by being well located and applying innovative design and operational models. The paper describes the project and applies the Sustainable Building Assessment Tool (SBAT) to critically evaluate the proposed approach. It concludes that the project includes useful models that can be applied to improve the affordability and sustainability of housing projects and makes recommendations for further development.

The full paper can be viewed here: Gibberd, J., 2019, Evaluating the Sustainability of a High-Density Affordable Housing Development in Alexandra, Johannesburg, Southern African Energy Efficiency Confederation, Farm Inn, Pretoria, South Africa, 14-15 November 2019.