New approach aims to break down barriers

CITY departments are to be aligned to function as area-based teams – each focusing on a quadrant of the city – to combat the bureaucratic “siloism” that impedes development and service delivery.

This was revealed by mayoral committee member for human settlements Benedicta van Minnen.

A common theme of recent Weekend Argus reports on development across the metropole has been criticism by researchers, architects, developers and others of the pattern in local government of new projects being assessed, approved and processed department by department, each operating within its own “silo”.

This caused costly and frustrating delays and tended to dilute over-arching developmental goals – like den- sification, or getting better-located affordable housing off the ground quicker.

Van Minnen told Weekend Argus part of the city’s new organisational development transformation plan was “a rethink of the departmental connections to break down siloism”.

“Government tends to be bad at that, at not talking to each other.

“So this initiative is to improve connectivity to ensure more even development.”

Key departments would be re-aligned to work together in focusing on each of the geographical quadrants of the city – east, north, south and west.

“The changes are there to facilitate even-handed and increased service delivery,” Van Minnen said.

She added that flexibility was needed in meeting the demands and needs of a dynamic environment.

“A city is a moving target. It’s evolving all the time, and always changing.”

This was the core principle in the city’s determination to stimulate development along transport routes and steadily improve accessible transport options.

Housing, for instance, could not be divorced from transport, jobs, schools, clinics and shops.

This broader view of development was essential to breaking the inherited patterns of dormitory – latterly RDP – housing estates “on sandy dunes” far from services, jobs or amenities.

“Bringing densities closer to public transport, the corridors of connectivity, is essential.

“This is why we refer to ‘human settlements’… it’s not just houses, but everything that is required for communities to live better and have mobility, to move around the city and become integrated residents of the entire city, which is impossible if they are stuck ‘out there’ somewhere and cannot get anywhere.”

Human movement, she said, was the precondition for “interaction and integration” across all of Cape Town.