Covid-19 ushers in village life

Westbrook, a gated estate in

Port Elizabeth, has sold out their first of nine villages, The Ridge, with 24% of the first phase of the second village, River Dale, sold before construction started.

The completed development will comprise nine residential estates, a town centre with shops, restaurants, offices, medical facilities and health clubs, a Curro private school, and an Evergreen retirement village.

Developed by the Amdec

Group, Westbrook is one of Port Elizabeth’s largest and fastest growing multigenerational lifestyle estates. It’s set on 128ha of parkland and located on Port Elizabeth’s western edge, close to retail and commercial nodes with easy access to major arterials, beaches, and the city’s central business district.

Westbrook MD Clifford Oosthuizen says, “The need for connected communities has perhaps never before been more apparent, or necessary, as the world starts to emerge from a global pandemic that forced us into social distancing, selfisolation, remote learning and working from home.

“Creating thriving communities involves more than building roads, delivering infrastructure and building houses; it’s about providing balance and sustainable environments where people can live, work and play in secure and harmonious communities.”

Instead of focussing on the physical attributes of a building, developers will now pay more attention to the principles of designing and developing services and support structures to help residents integrate, work together, self-organise, withstand and respond positively to change.

This will see the rise of more multi-faceted, multi-generational developments like Westbrook emerge, according to Oosthuizen.

Multi-generational households sharing costs is how nearly one in five people in the United States and Australia live. Statistics SA says in November last year that 32.2% of homes in the property market housed multi-generational families, indicating the trend is gaining popularity here too.

This can also be attributed to rising unemployment rates and cultural customs, the high cost of living that makes it hard for young professionals to live on their own, and growing concerns about the safety and isolation of elderly relatives.