OpenUCT :: Browsing by Author "Katzschner, Tania"

Browsing by Author "Katzschner, Tania"

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Open Access
A 'Foodshed' Moment for Planning: Investigating the Role of Food-Sensitive Planning in supporting Cape Town?s Resilience Strategy to strengthen Food Security, using the Philippi Horticultural Area as a case study
(2023) Zaloumis, Georgina; Katzschner, Tania
In recognition of the complexities and urgency brought about by increasing present and expected future intersectional crises, the CoCT developed and adopted its own Resilience Strategy. This strategy realises the fragility of urban food systems and the importance of achieving resilience to better support food security within Cape Town. Small-scale farms which make up the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA) have been effective in retaining the production and accessibility of food which is resilient in the face of numerous shocks and stresses. It currently produces 50-70% of Cape Town's nutritionally dense and fresh food making it a vital component of Cape Town's foodshed. Additionally, it is also essential because it achieves multiple benefits across the Resilience Strategy due to its ecological, agricultural as well as socio-economic value to Cape Town. However, a proactive planning approach is needed as the PHA is under threat due to land-use pressures from mismanagement of land regulations, planning uncertainty and a lack adequate governance. Thus, there is a need to examine the role of food-sensitive planning in strengthening Cape Town's Resilience Strategy with achieving food security, using the PHA as a case study. This site provides an opportunity for planners to rethink how food-sensitive planning can be better integrated into the MSDF. The aim of the study is to investigate how the MSDF can better aligned with Cape Town's Resilience Strategy to mitigate threats to the PHA and enhance the resilience of local food production in Cape Town using food-sensitive planning. This aim will be achieved through desktop research, semistructured interviews, and field observations in the PHA. The results of this study indicate that foodsensitive planning is an innovative method to better harness and harmonise with the MSDF and Resilient Strategy to enable a more resilient food system in Cape Town. This is through the integration of bottom-up knowledge and top-down action to implement targeted interventions that value and protect food security assets such as the PHA. Nevertheless, going forward this research can contribute to studies around strengthening planning and governance of peri-urban agriculture areas in the global South to better support urban resilience and food security as well as broaden literature around food-sensitive planning.
Open Access
Addressing car dependency in Cape Town: Reviewing how the Citys mobility and spatial frameworks can transcend car-oriented urbanism
(2023) Mpanang'ombe, Wrixon; Katzschner, Tania
This dissertation presents research conducted by Wrixon Mpanang'ombe titled ‘Addressing car dependency in Cape Town: Reviewing how the city's mobility and spatial frameworks can transcend car-oriented urbanism'. The research stems from a background of the need to address problems associated with the dominance of cars in cities. The problems include carbon emissions contributing to climate change, road safety issues, pollution and other public health challenges, but also inequitable accessibility favouring private car users, among many other problems. Also, the research is motivated by and in response to the argument by Newman and Kenworthy (2015) that cities are experiencing an end to car dependency. However, since this argument is made based on Global North contexts, researching what an end to car dependency might imply for Southern cities is very relevant. Therefore, this research situates in Cape Town to explore how the City of Cape Town is currently dealing with the issue of transitioning away from car dependency and caroriented urbanism. The research explores this by deploying an analysis of the discourse around issues addressing car dependency and car-oriented urbanism in the City's key transport and spatial planning frameworks. The frameworks were analysed through a series of assessment criteria that were derived from the literature review. Three main gaps emerged through the research: (1) the reluctance to call out car dependency as a major transport problem in the city, (2) the focus on costs for low-income groups in the City's transport planning objectives while overlooking the car dependency in medium- and high-income groups, and (3) the inadequate spatial alignment of plans with the varying urban fabrics (i.e., based on Newman's and Kenworthy's (2015) theory of urban fabrics) and therefore not positioned to leverage the potential of rejuvenating urban fabrics as a pathway toward ending car dependency. The research further suggests that to address these gaps, the key frameworks should be repositioned to explicitly name car dependency as a major problem for the urban mobility system, but also the various urban fabrics should be mapped and aligned with the City's transport and spatial plans and land use policies.
Open Access
An in-depth investigation into the safety of Nyanga's public spaces from a gender-sensitive perspective.
(2023) Mofokeng, Tiisetso; Katzschner, Tania
Historically - and currently - women in the global South have generally been viewed as subordinate to men. This is often centred around social perceptions of the different genders and is especially apparent in modern-day leadership, policymaking and managerial roles, where roles are often set aside for men. In the Cape Town township of Nyanga, three public spaces have been identified as crime hotspots. Women who live in the area do not feel safe in these spaces and are often the victims of crime. Thus, there is a need for an in-depth, gender-sensitive investigation into the safety of Nyanga's public spaces. This study seeks to do this and to explore how and why Nyanga's public spaces are failing to deliver gender-sensitive safety outcomes. Methodologically, the aim and main research question of the study is geared towards answering “how” and “why” questions, which necessitate a qualitative (case study and ethnographic research) approach. The tools that are used to collect such data are interviews, observations and mapping as well as Instagram question polls. The results of this study show that in order to provide safe gendersensitive outcomes, appropriate spatial interventions and safety tools need to be implemented for public spaces in Nyanga. Going forward, knowledge from this research recommends planning interventions and design resolutions that encourage South African planners and other built environment practitioners to incorporate gender-sensitive inventions in their thinking and practices. Above all else, this knowledge is geared towards empowering women by not confining them to the indoor realm of the household, but empowering them to reclaim their rights to public spaces.
Open Access
Building adaptive capacity to flood risk in Philippi, Cape Town, through infrastructure-led planning interventions
(2016) Mtuleni, Rose T T; Katzschner, Tania
There is a global trend of increase in urban population growth rates. Much of the population growth occurs in cities of developing countries, with high percentages of the populations living in informal settlements on the peripheries of cities. The often unplanned expansion of cities is increasingly exposing a large number of urban residents and economic assets to disaster risk. The City of Cape Town (CCT) is no exception to the rapid expansion of informal settlements. Heavy winter rainfall leads to flooding in Cape Town, with severe flooding impacts mainly manifesting in low income settlements. Flooding occurs due to the natural setting of Cape Town, and due to lack of adequate water-related infrastructure in some parts of the city. Although infrastructure interventions for flood risk reduction have had some success in reducing flood impacts in some parts of Cape Town, much of the local government response to flooding disasters has been reactive, short term and generally not designed to effectively support informal settlements. The township of Philippi is highly impacted by flooding events, which often compromise the township's safety and public health, and destroy livelihood assets, leaving adverse impacts on local livelihoods. This dissertation uses Philippi as a case study to assess and investigate how an infrastructure-led planning approach to flood risk can provide solutions and contribute to building better adaptive capacity to flooding, for a rapidly growing population exposed to flooding and lacking adequate water infrastructure services. Utilizing policy review, key informant interviews, Census data, geospatial data mapping and observation, this study identifies the major impediments to enhancement of flood resilience through infrastructure planning in Philippi. It explores the opportunities and potential that Philippi has to set precedent for flood-resilient developments in Cape Town. A Spatial Flood Resilience Framework is presented as a spatial planning tool providing an infrastructure-led planning approach to flood risk and guiding decision-making towards effectively making Philippi more floodresilient. The study highlights the need for risk-informed local plans to reduce disaster risk in Cape Town and identifies collaborative governance as a significant aspect of the planning and implementation processes for flood risk reduction, as it integrates different actors in working towards a common agenda. This study aims to identify and improve the role of urban planning in moving towards flood resilient neighbourhoods in Cape Town. The study highlights the role of planning in ensuring that development avoids or mitigates flood risk, and identifies flood resilience as a valuable aspect of the spatial quality of a city. Enhancing flood resilience is an essential premise for the facilitation of development in areas of disaster risk and a major step toward socio-spatial justice in the city. The research conducted for the study contributes to the Global South research base and provides a possible precedent for future spatial development plans regarding flood risk in cities of the Global South.
Open Access
Conceptualising a 'living urban edge' for the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA), Cape Town
(2021) Chittenden, Tessa Rose; Katzschner, Tania
The PHA is a large tract of productive farmlands embedded in the Cape Flats district of the City of Cape Town. The farmlands are essential for the City's food and water security, local livelihoods, biodiversity, heritage and access to green space for poor communities. Despite a long-standing policy commitment to protecting the PHA through an urban edge, the farmlands are being constantly eroded by urban development encroachment, pressures and externalities. This dissertation will investigate why this is the case through critically interrogating Cape Town's implementation of the urban edge. Through this, shortcomings in the current approach are identified, and in response to this the author investigates how an alternative approach can be created. In order to identify why urban development encroachment has persisted in the PHA, critical discourse analysis of relevant policies, site observation, semi-structured interviews with spatial planners, and focus groups with the PHA Campaign are utilized. The author argues that the urban edge has failed to protect the PHA due to the political complexities of top-down implementation, poor enforcement of land use regulations and a lack of proactive and positive planning for the urban-rural interface. Following this, and inspired by theories of regenerative development and bottom-up planning, the author proposes an alternative novel spatial concept for safeguarding green space from urban development encroachment termed the 'living urban edge'. This concept is co-produced with the PHA Food and Farming Campaign (the PHA Campaign), a group of small-scale farmers and activists who are working tirelessly to defend the farmlands. To this end, focus groups with the PHA Campaign were used to generate design principles which aim to create a positive urban-rural interface for the PHA where urban development encroachment is discouraged. Beyond this, the 'living urban edge' concept proposes a buffer of small-scale farms and blue-green infrastructure positioned around the edge of the PHA which can create a barrier of bottom-up defense against the constant erosion of the PHA. The final product is a spatial concept, piloted in a portion of the western edge of the PHA, which hopes to inspire other cases where green space is threatened by urban development
Open Access
Conceptualising a 'living urban edge' for the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA), Cape Town
(2021) Chittenden, Tessa; Katzschner, Tania
The PHA is a large tract of productive farmlands embedded in the Cape Flats district of the City of Cape Town. The farmlands are essential for the City's food and water security, local livelihoods, biodiversity, heritage and access to green space for poor communities. Despite a long-standing policy commitment to protecting the PHA through an urban edge, the farmlands are being constantly eroded by urban development encroachment, pressures and externalities. This dissertation will investigate why this is the case through critically interrogating Cape Town's implementation of the urban edge. Through this, shortcomings in the current approach are identified, and in response to this the author investigates how an alternative approach can be created. In order to identify why urban development encroachment has persisted in the PHA, critical discourse analysis of relevant policies, site observation, semi-structured interviews with spatial planners, and focus groups with the PHA Campaign are utilized. The author argues that the urban edge has failed to protect the PHA due to the political complexities of top-down implementation, poor enforcement of land use regulations and a lack of proactive and positive planning for the urban-rural interface. Following this, and inspired by theories of regenerative development and bottom-up planning, the author proposes an alternative novel spatial concept for safeguarding green space from urban development encroachment termed the 'living urban edge'. This concept is co-produced with the PHA Food and Farming Campaign (the PHA Campaign), a group of small-scale farmers and activists who are working tirelessly to defend the farmlands. To this end, focus groups with the PHA Campaign were used to generate design principles which aim to create a positive urban-rural interface for the PHA where urban development encroachment is discouraged. Beyond this, the 'living urban edge' concept proposes a buffer of small-scale farms and blue-green infrastructure positioned around the edge of the PHA which can create a barrier of bottom-up defense against the constant erosion of the PHA. The final product is a spatial concept, piloted in a portion of the western edge of the PHA, which hopes to inspire other cases where green space is threatened by urban development
Open Access
Every Last Drop: The role of spatial planning in integrated urban water management in the Cape Town City-Region
(2014) Cameron, Rebecca; Katzschner, Tania
Water is essential to life. However, the current urban water system and environment is degrading freshwater ecosystems, nature’s ability to replenish resources and the relationship between people and the environment due to unsustainable consumption and discharge patterns. This is an international phenomenon and in the City of Cape Town, where water is considered a scarce resource, it is particularly urgent and important. This is due to the expected population growth, and an increased water demand as the current services backlog is addressed and living standards increase which when combined with the stresses of Climate Change and the associated future uncertainty make it even more alarming. These issues have direct and indirect implications that are too often hidden from and invisible to the public, especially with regard to the spatial form and structure of the City, which occurs through formal or informal processes of management and investment. While there is a movement towards tackling these issues, through the Integrated Urban Water Management Paradigm, there has been little physical change manifest in urban areas where the source and effects of these problems are so acutely experienced. This study has therefore sought to understand how spatial planning can be utilised as a tool to aid the transition to a more water-secure future through enabling sectoral integration and spatial co-ordination; where water influences the form and structure of the City. This is based on the premise that freshwater ecosystems and the role and effects of the urban water system are poorly addressed in spatial planning. Strategic Spatial Planning, unlike land use management, is a process of long term future imagining that is well-positioned to address the conflicts and tensions that arise through the implementation of a variety of sectoral policies with competing interests while including the voice of multiple stakeholders. In light of this, this study has undertaken a review of international and local literature to theoretically locate this study. This is followed by a contextual spatial and policy analysis of Cape Town to better understand the key priorities for water and urban development in the area. Using these two as a platform to guide appropriate intervention, a Spatial Development Water Framework (SDWF) has been created to propose a new water and development paradigm in Cape Town. This plan is governed by the principles of reverence, restoration, restraint and responsibility. Through acknowledging the spatial relationships between people, their activities and freshwater ecosystems this SDWF offers the opportunity to promote a more cyclical flow of resource use, the use of ecosystem services for more resilient and less energy dependant infrastructure, increased local subsistence and an improved relationship and connection between people and their water environments. It is through these strategies that it could be possible to transition to an increasingly secure water future in the City of Cape Town for improved social and ecological health, connected communities, shared prosperity and an intelligent water system.
Open Access
Food for the Future: Planning for Urban Agriculture In Cape Town's City Bowl
(2013) Rabkin, Nicola Nan; Katzschner, Tania
The field of urban planning engages with many aspects of human life, but urban food systems, especially food production, have somehow slipped the agenda. Food insecurity and food-related challenges have for a long time been viewed as rural issues related to environmental factors affecting food production. Now that, in 2013, more than half the world's human population lives in cities, food insecurity has become an urban issue just as much, if not more, than that of rural areas. At the same time industrial and conventional agricultural methods fail to satisfy global human hunger and contribute to large-scale ecological destruction and a variety of human health problems. In many cities around the world, local governments and planning departments, and the planning profession more broadly, have begun to think more deeply about urban food systems: can food systems be more just, more equal, more accessible, healthier and ecologically sustainable. The literature on urban agriculture generally follows two themes: one being urban agriculture as a livelihood and food security strategy for the poor and the other being as socio-ecological strategy to build community through enlivened, green public spaces. Global ecological and economic crises are slowly bringing these themes closer towards one another. Cape Town, in policy and practice, generally remains within the theme of urban agriculture as a food security strategy for the poor. This is a narrow and limited conception of urban agriculture that creates spatial and behavioral barriers to food production in the city. A case study of Cape Town's City Bowl presents an opportunity to engage planners, and ordinary citizens, with food and food systems through urban agricultural strategies. This study examines the constraining factors of urban food production and the potential that this unique urban centre holds for building a healthier food system for all inhabitants. These opportunities are, in this thesis, transformed into proposals for interventions, primarily involving local government and planning.
Open Access
How spatial planning can enable pathways toward wildfire mitigation within the fire-prone wildland and urban interface, City of Cape Town
(2023) Pieters, Ewan; Katzschner, Tania
18th of April 2021, a wildfire raged through parts of the University of Cape Towns upper campus, with damage assessed at approximately R500 million. There were calls from senior leadership that UCT "will rebuild facilities". The post-disaster rhetoric of rebuilding is problematic, as we should never rebuild what was because the old geographic, economic and social position is no longer sustainable. Critical disaster management frameworks strongly advocate more emphasis on preventing disasters; without compromising the much-needed reactive qualities of the discipline. It places responsibility on spatial planning – development restrictions, land uses, building regulations, tenure boundaries, spatial layout and road patterns –as the critical juncture toward achieving long-term disaster risk reduction. Due to climate change, wildfire anomalies and associated destructiveness oblige humankind to revise pieces of knowledge calibrated to conditions that no longer exist. This research responds to this call for "different ways of thinking", investigating the local merging of planning and disaster disciplines in hopes of creating new knowledge to realise longterm wildfire risk reduction within flammable Wild and Urban Interface, City of Cape Town. This qualitative dissertation collected primary data using online semi-structured interviews with local spatial planners, engineers, disaster management officials and insurance brokers. Secondary data was collected through a review of published journals; and regulations and policies from California, Victoria and Western Cape. Both data sets are used to investigate spatial planning as leverage to realise long-term wildfire risk reduction for the University of Cape Town and Spanish Farm Somerset West sites (the case studies of the dissertation). Even the best firefighting equipment will not help much during an extreme weather wildfire due to ember storms making fire breaks redundant. Fire-fighting and suppression technologies are less effective than perceived during wildfire extreme weather events. When it comes to traditional wildfire disaster measures such as prescribed burnings and alien vegetation removal – locally, these mitigation techniques are well established. However, the study found that disaster management respondents and best practice policy analysis, local and abroad, unanimously agree that focus must be placed on protecting urban structures for overall wildfire risk reduction. The study found that local planners and disaster management officials rarely collaborate on wildfire disaster matters due to misaligned goals and ideals. In the context of climate change, the study found that the local zoning scheme needs an overlay zone dedicated fully to wildfire mitigation, as local overlays have the unique ability to guide development in a potential "fire-safe manner". Within the City of Cape Town, spatial planning has the unique potential to realise this focus through an amended provincial zoning scheme. The study proposes a Western Cape veld and forest fire management overlay zone that demarcates high-fire risk regions on the urban edge, pre and post-development. The proposed overlay imposes restrictions on these sites to bypass "rebuilding" unsustainably and initiate "build back better" post disaster. This theorises a wildfireresilient City of Cape Town wild land urban interface. The study employs this proposed fire-specific overlay zone over the projects case studies (UCT and Spanish Farm) – to show how it could potentially mitigate wildfire risk in these flammable sites. The basis of this idea is formed from a cross-contextual analysis of Victoria, California and Western Cape regulation; and from the insights of planning, engineer, wildfire disaster management and insurance industry respondents from the Western Cape region.
Open Access
Moving towards a strategy for the sustainable delivery of emergency housing and temporary residential accommodation in the City of Cape Town
(2014) Brink, Chadernnay; Katzschner, Tania
This dissertation presents the current reality of a South African city, Cape Town. Based on the literature it has been established that a large proportion of South Africa’s population lives in urban areas. South African cities are centres of opportunities and have the promise of a better life but they are also characterised by marginalisation, poverty and poorly managed urban growth. Informal settlements have become a ubiquitous feature of South Africa’s urban landscape. The combination of poverty, marginality, overcrowding and limited service provision, exposes residents to a range of ongoing hazards, particularly informal dwelling fires which creates an environment prone to risks and can be devastating for affected households. The current response from government has been analysed through the process of interviewing government officials; policy and institutional analysis, is to temporarily house people in Temporary Relocation Areas (TRAs) if affected by a situation that leaves them rendered homeless. It is believed to be an adequate response. However, as the research reveals, this response often exacerbates people’s resilience to deal with the disaster and the accumulation of risks found in informal settlements. Additionally it further places people in a vulnerable situation as Temporary Relocation Areas (TRAs) have limited service provision and are often located in remote areas far from opportunity centres. The intention of the research was to come up with a new strategy to address emergency response in the form of settlement provision for those affected by disasters. It was further discovered that there needs to be a more sustainable approach that would reduce risk accumulation in informal settlements in a proactive manner in order to mitigate the occurrence of disasters and slowly build resilience.
Open Access
Re-Discovering & Re-Conceptualising Local Area Plans: A Qualitative Investigation in Guiding Spatial Sustainability in Maitland, Cape Town
(2023) Messaris, Anastasia; Katzschner, Tania
Cities and their sub-units are increasingly conceived as being dynamic, relational, and unbounded. Due to these attributes, they are recognised as a key means of driving sustainability and sustainable urban development (which is best understood as the entwined requirements for progress towards lasting wellbeing). In response to this, the global policy document the New Urban Agenda Illustrated introduced a fourth dimension to sustainable urban development: spatial sustainability, wherein guiding the physical form of urban environments towards specific spatial conditions can enhance social, economic, and environmental value and wellbeing and, in so doing, arrive at equity. The document recommends the use of local area plans to guide urban development toward spatial sustainability. However, South Africa's local area plans are currently not conceptualised to guide spatial sustainability which, as a recent global concept, has yet to be rigorously researched in specific contexts. Moreover, local area plans are generally under-explored and under-utilised in South African planning theory and policy, where the emphasis is on large-scale strategic spatial plans and spatial development frameworks. In response to this, the research aims to 1) establish whether South Africa's planning system requires local area plans and, if so, to clarify their contribution, and 2) to enrich the interpretation of spatial sustainability, with the view to 3) exploring how planners might re-discover and re-conceptualise local area plans to guide spatial sustainability. The research aims were achieved through the qualitative research approach that methodologically made use of a case study in Maitland, Cape Town. Data was collected and analysed through various techniques and against a conceptual framework derived from a literature review. The study employed design-orientated inquiry in which an initial local area plan proposal was presented to a focus group and – based on their feedback – undetected facets of analysis were further explored and the local area plan proposal was redrafted. The enriched interpretation of spatial sustainability recognises that space that seeks to achieve equity comprises relations and processes as much as the substantive features of physical form. To this end, the research suggests that it is necessary to appreciate the context, structure, and dynamics of place (the product of planned space), which is best understood through analysing the activity, psychology, and physicality of place. The results of this analysis in Maitland are threefold. Firstly, the analysis confirms that local area plans are a crucial component of South Africa's planning system when situated in areas of strategic importance. Secondly, Maitland is revealed to be a multifaceted port-of-entry neighbourhood where relations and practices extend beyond the area's boundaries. Thirdly, the results suggest that a local area plan re-conceptualised to guide spatial sustainability should be viewed as both a process and a product. In other words, local area planning requires two responses: it needs to produce a material local area plan (the plan as a noun), and the method of achieving that plan needs to foster the conditions for diverse current and future involvement in the planning process (planning as a verb). Based on these significant findings and using Maitland as a point of reference, the research proposes recommendations for preparing for, producing, and sustaining a local area plan in areas of strategic importance. Re-discovered and re-conceptualised in this way, local area plans are an essential means of achieving equity and lasting wellbeing in complex contemporary contexts, which is the fundamental objective of spatial sustainability.
Open Access
Regional Spatial Development Framework for Saldanha Bay Municipality: Pursuing a more Ecologically Integrated Future
(2018) Le Grange, Louis; Katzschner, Tania
This study has sought to understand how spatial planning can be utilized as a tool to aid the transition to a more ecologically resilient future through better integrating natural resource management and spatial planning. Nature profoundly influences the structure and form of Saldanha Bay Municipality. This is based on the premise that nature is not situated at the forefront of development and is not adequately addressed in spatial planning - our relationship with nature needs to change. Strategic spatial planning is a long term future imagined. Unlike conventional land use management, spatial planning is well-positioned to resolve conflicts and tensions through in-depth analysis, direction, guidance and then strategic implementation. With the guidance of multiple policies, the personal beliefs of a planner and the incorporation of the interests of a variety of stakeholders, a future that is conducive to all is possible. In light of this, the main objective of this study was to integrate the 2011 Spatial Development Framework and the 2015 Environmental Management Framework of Saldanha Bay Municipality in order to find gaps and contestations which will help produce an improved and better-integrated ecologically mindful Regional Spatial Development Framework for Saldanha Bay Municipality. This study has undertaken a review of international literature to theoretically locate this study. This is followed by a contextual spatial and policy analysis of Saldanha Bay Municipality, which was predominantly focused on the findings of the 2015 EMF and 2011 SDF in order to better understand the key priorities with regards to the environment in the region. Using this as a platform to guide appropriate intervention, a Regional Spatial Development Framework (RSDF) has been created to propose a new nature-based development path. This plan is governed by the principles of reverence, intergenerational equity, interconnectedness, intrinsic value and individual responsibility. By recognizing the spatial relationships between people, their activities and nature this RSDF offers an opportunity to promote a more integrated and harmonized future. This is done using the key environmental layers of the 2015 EMF as the main platform to guide development towards better ecological resilience and adaption in the region. The key layers of the 2015 EMF are the” Keep Assets Intact”, “Develop with Care: Valued Resources” and “Develop with Care: Restrictive Conditions or Constraints” which indicate all the environmental attributes in the region. By understanding the environmental context, the researcher formulated three management frameworks from which key strategic interventions were developed in order to accommodate these environmental attributes and guide the vision of the RSDF. The landscape and natural resource management framework consists of the strategies of ecological remnants, diversifying dryland agriculture, coastline protection and enhancement, and lastly catchment management initiatives. All these strategies are directed at and fundamentally pursue the protection, enhancement, conservation and regeneration of ecosystems and biodiversity in the region. The economic development management framework consists of the strategies of renewable energy, eco industries and the IDZ. These strategies focus on the advancement of the local economy through sustainable and ecologically adaptive strategies. The site and settlement management framework consists of the strategies of townscape, reduce point source pollution and sustainable human settlements. These strategies focus on the local sense of place and predominantly the upgrading of infrastructure within settlements in the region. They are placed within a phasing framework for optimized and strategic intervention. All these strategies aim to create a more life-sustaining region through integrating and harmonising the relationship between people and nature, by establishing the importance and qualities of nature. Therefore, by implementing strategies that are spatially designated across the region and that focus on environmental prosperity and the integration of people and nature, it could be possible to transition to an increasingly ecologically secure future in Saldanha Bay Municipality where there is improved social and ecological health, local prosperity and a region where the natural landscape flourishes.
Open Access
Spatial planning for climate change adaptation : developing a climate change local area adaptation plan for Khayelitsha
(2014) Mashila, Thabang; Katzschner, Tania
Climate change is now widely seen as a major challenge of this time and the future of cities. However, the most vulnerable will be the urban poor particularly those located on the urban fringes in high risk areas with limited access to basic services and economic opportunities. In South Africa, although progress has been made to reduce socio-economic and environmental challenges created by apartheid legislations, inequalities still exist where the privileged live in safer and well located and serviced parts of the city while he poor are still located in settlements created by apartheid in urban fringes. Spatial Planning presents an opportunity to increase resilience to climate change in vulnerable areas of cities. Through integrating planning and climate adaptation actions, future spatial decisions will add to resilience to climate change and enhance wellbeing of people. The dissertation includes a case study that was conducted to learn about the status quo of the study area to effectively recommend relevant interventions that seek to create resilience to climate change in the area. A local area adaptation plan was then formulated including the framework for implementing proposed interventions in a 20 year timeframe.
Open Access
The role of informal trade markets in household food security and nutrition in Cape Town s food systems value chain
(2024) Malatji, Tshegofatso; Katzschner, Tania
Increasing populations in urban areas increases a household's dependence on bought food. This phenomenon, in turn, makes existing and projected food security issues an urban challenge (Frayne et al, 2009; Battersby, 2011). To this end, fresh produce markets (FPMs) in urban areas enable increased access to affordable nutritional foods, especially informal fresh produce markets (IFPMs) (AFSUN, 2008-9). Thus, informal fresh produce markets in particular are elements of food systems that warrant closer attention for legislators, policy-makers, and spatial development planners. This research has looked to understand how food security is improved through an exploration of the distribution, preparation and consumption dynamics of the food system in context. This was done through making use of the case study of the Protea Road informal traders (hereafter ‘entrepreneurs') (Charman and Govender, 2016) in Philippi, Cape Town as an exemplar. This research therefore starts by looking at how the state of food [in]security in South Africa and the Western Cape Province has been framed, and what the gaps in research may be. This is followed by a look at what has or has not been done to address the issue, thus comparing what has or has not been said, who is involved and what those relationship dynamics are. It then answers why all this is happening as well as how these dynamics operate. Thereafter, the recommendations aim to suggest possible ways in which change can occur through policy engagement, capacity building and place-based spatial interventions. It has found that at macro-level, food systems and food systems planning is as equally dependent on political, economic, environmental and social support mechanisms, as urban priorities are. On a micro level, the physical, social and infrastructural requirements needed to make food more accessible to households are supported by urban priorities, while also recognising urban priorities as an integral part of food access (Crush and Frayne, 2011; Haysom et al., 2017; Battersby and Watson, 2018; SLF, 2018; Béné and Devereux, 2023; Haysom and Battersby, 2023).
Open Access
Towards more integrated human-nature relationships: A Local Area Spatial Development Framework for the Two Rivers Urban Park (TRUP) Site
(2016) Blatch, Timothy; Katzschner, Tania
In this dissertation, the author explores the theme and concept of enabling more integrated human-nature relationships through strategic spatial planning. The idea that ecological planning, at a number of scales, should be an integral part of the strategic spatial planning process, in order to enable this integration, was investigated, in the current context of environmental degradation as a result of unsustainable development trajectories, climate change uncertainty, social and economic inequality, the need for compaction, and the need to strategically develop well-located catalytic sites in the city. The notion of positive and sustainable spatial planning as an enabler of more integrated human-nature relationships is investigated in terms of ecological approaches to development. The current disconnection of humans and nature has long been attributed to anthropocentric , post-industrial, and consumerist paradigms which have encouraged unsustainable urban development models, usually with assumed inevitable negative effects on the natural environment. As a result, the natural world's carrying capacity, quality, and presence in urban areas, has been severely compromized. This has limited nature's capacity to provide the necessary life support systems for humans and development and essential goods and services. This study, therefore, suggests that a paradigm shift is necessary in terms of how urban development and the natural environment interact and in terms of fostering the conditions necessary for more integrated human-nature relationships. This paradigm shift is within the realm of possibility within the ecological and spatial planning discourses. This study develops and presents a local area spatial development framework for a well-located site in the Cape Town Metropolitan area: the Two Rivers Urban Park (TRUP) site. This SDF represents the development of a spatial model for as to how more-integrated human-nature relationships can be enabled through spatial planning on the site. The study presents a literature review of literature relevant to human-nature relationships, spatial planning, and ecological planning in order to establish a theoretical framework before conducting a multi-layer anaysis of the status quo of the site. A SDF is then presented to guide responsible, positive, and sustainable development on the site over a twenty year period (2016-2036). The implementation framework is then presented before the dissertation is concluded and the major findings, recommendations, and contributions of the study are discussed. The methods and techniques used for data collection, analysis, and interpretation included case study methods, discourse and policy analysis, desktop research, observations, non-structured interviews, mapping, aerial photography, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) analysis, and an iterative conceptual design process. The SDF was generated in response to the theoretical framework and contextual analysis of the site. The major conclusions and findings were that, through the process of developing the SDF, it is possible to exhibit how spatial and ecological planning may be integrated in order to enable and foster deeper connections between humans and nature. The framework seeks to exhibit good-practice pilot projects and strategic interventions which should be innovatively implemented in terms of satisfying the criteria of positive development, sustainability, and depper human-nature relationships. A series of intentional and conscious eco-village type communities are envisioned on the site, whose way of life is closely connected and integrated into a single socio-ecological system with nature. Recommendations for future planning and research are presented and a personal reflection articulated before the study is concluded.
Open Access
The utilisation of spatial planning in improving urban water culture: a case study of Oranjezicht, Cape Town
(2018) Petersen, Gadija Assaa-Imah; Katzschner, Tania
Nothing can exist, live, survive or thrive without water. Water is the basis of life for all living organisms and the centre of life for all societies. The global attitude around water has become territorial as it encompasses an intricate link to the development of nations. Centralising main water supplies beyond urban boundaries may have improved the utilisation of water but has also resulted in the separation of society and water. Water is what gave rise to the city of Cape Town, as there was an abundance of rivers and springs located on and around Table Mountain. This water was first used by the Khoi people and became the reason for colonial settlers residing in the Cape. The City is currently experiencing the worst water crisis in over a century due to increased temperatures and decreased rainfall. Amid the water crisis there appears to be underused, freshwater below Cape Town's CBD, flowing to the Atlantic Ocean via the stormwater reticulation system. This water originates from Table Mountain's rivers, streams and, to an extent, springs. Naturally, the drought has sparked widespread concern for, and attention given to, water and its sustainable usage. This dissertation explores the ways in which the City's water, environmental and spatial planning policies could spark a new and improved water-culture within Cape Town to ensure sustainable, long-term water availability. This is done through investigating the potential of Oranjezicht in becoming a catalytic area for water sustainability due to the locations of the Field of Springs and the Platteklip Stream. This dissertation proposes using water sensitive urban design as well as integrated, collaborative partnerships and management mechanisms to encourage an improved urban water culture.
Open Access
Waste matters in planning - an analysis of the spatial implications of solid waste management in the city of Cape Town
(2013) Chitapi, Simba; Katzschner, Tania
Urban planning has traditionally been involved with the management of space, creation of place. It is a profession concerned with coordinating relationships between society and nature to foster development which improves all lives especially those of the poor. As such, planning synthesises the concerns of many different fields. Solid waste management however seems to has not been sufficiently appreciated in terms of its spatial implications. Planning literature does not engage substantially with issues around solid waste management. However, through the many allusions to waste and by investigating solid waste literature spatial issues emerged. Indeed, the literature unveiled two overarching themes: First, urban waste can no longer be hidden from waste generator by exporting it to the hinterland. Following on from this, a decentralisation of waste management facilities is pivotal in achieving the participation and fostering the cooperation necessary to create cyclical urban waste flow. Thus beginning with the premise that solid waste concerns are poorly addressed by planning, this dissertation investigates the reason this has transpired in Cape Town and proposes planning interventions that would begin to engender change. After conducting a spatial analysis of the City, engaging urban professionals in conversation, statistical analyses of waste flows, and reviewing the policy relationship between solid waste and spatial planning analysing, it emerged that the oversight of solid waste in planning is rooted in an uncertainty of how to address solid waste concerns. The utility of people-infrastructure relationships, the way in which urban functions relate and the link between regulatory planning policy have been underestimated in in their capacity to effect waste minimisation. In light of this, policy and spatial interventions are proposed; these aim to harness the potential of people and to increase the functionality of infrastructures. These interventions aspire to dissolve the spirit of deference - planning to SWM; citizens to SWM; urban to hinterland - evident in urban solid waste management. If successful, these interventions should challenge urban perceptions of waste such that waste is no longer the responsibility of 'the other'; through recognition of waste's utility a sense of personal responsibility may develop. So, once planning as a profession 'owns' waste management as a key concern, planning can contribute to changing perceptions.

Browsing by Author "Katzschner, Tania"

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