The Greater Lanseria Master Plan (GLMP) is the first stage in the development of the new Smart City in Lanseria (Gauteng Province), as announced by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in his 2020 State of the Nation Address. Following the announcement, a joint initiative led by the Gauteng Office of the Premier was formed to undertake extensive studies and engagements for the planning of Lanseria Smart City.
The Gauteng City Region population is estimated to increase from 12.5 million to 30 million over the next 30 years and is set to become a mega-city the likes of São Paulo, Mexico City and Jakarta.
The Lanseria region, which lies on the boundary of four different municipalities, boasts the footprint needed to absorb a significant portion of the estimated growth in a structured way. What’s more, Lanseria will provide significant economic opportunity by providing a basis for sustainable urban consolidation, building on the influence of Lanseria International Airport and the vicinity of marginalised communities, such as Diepsloot and Cosmo City.
Interdisciplinary Approach
SMEC South Africa’s Urban Development team was appointed by GAPP Architects / Urban Designers as the Project Managers and Infrastructure and Transportation planners for the GLMP. The Urban Development team developed the Master Plan using the following ‘TRAM’ underpinnings:
- A Transformative city structure for true social and economic inclusion
- Reindustrialisation of the city economy
- Adaptive and resilient to change
- Modernising to be more internationally competitive
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the Urban Development team produced an integrated infrastructure and transportation master plan to ensure that the future Smart City would be adequately serviced, all whilst considering sustainable and innovative solutions and technologies in each of the following areas: water, sanitation, electricity, solid waste, roads, stormwater and information and communications technology.
The team also developed an implementation framework that highlights priority projects and cost estimates for budgeting purposes in order to guide stakeholders and key decision makers in government.
The GLMP was an excellent opportunity for SMEC South Africa to influence the future of new Smart City development in the country. Sustainable development guided all aspects of the GLMP and resulted in a plan that encourages the adoption of new technologies. This can be seen in the areas of waste-to-energy; recycling of water; generating electricity from biogas produced by wastewater treatment works; reducing solid waste and wastewater; and reducing the need to supplement water from outside the region’s catchment.
Shifting the paradigms of a Smart City
In the context of South Africa’s maturity level in relation to smart cities, the GLMP project will not reflect an extravagant tech-heavy city, but instead, a true post-apartheid city in which innovative technologies are used to provide smarter, more sustainable solutions and services that will change the apartheid spatial architecture and provide social and economic opportunity for all South Africans.
The GLMP project is seen as a key opportunity to move urban sustainability beyond existing paradigms of planning, engineering and urbanisation to increasingly appropriate levels of sustainability, innovation and inclusivity.
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