City of Cape Town Community Residential Units Refurbishment Programme
Award-winning low-cost housing project in Cape Town
In 2009, Zutari and another consulting engineering company were appointed to project manage the rollout of the City of Cape Town’s programme for the refurbishment of community residential units (CRUs). The goal of the programme was to address the maintenance of 43,500 homes for families earning between R800 and R3 500 per month.
The first phase targeted council houses and flats in Mannenberg, Scottsdene, Scottsville, Connaught, The Range, Uitsig, Woodlands, Heideveld, Hanover Park, Kewtown and Ottery. This included arranging structural assessments of these buildings and undertaking surveys to determine the specific maintenance needs throughout these areas. The refurbishment involved general renovations to buildings, roofs, and electrical and plumbing systems, and the installation of new ceilings, floor coverings, cupboards and geysers.
The project also included fencing, refuse management, area lighting, greening of areas, and establishing recreational facilities.
One of the challenges the project team had to overcome was finding affordable alternative accommodation for dwellings that needed to be vacated during specific periods. To cause minimum inconvenience to tenants, temporary villages made up of converted containers were provided to accommodate residents. The 2.4 m-wide by 12 m-long containers provided security and storage for their furniture, and included insulation, partitioning, power, running water, ablution facilities, and internal and external lighting.
“Low-cost housing is quite possibly the most challenging type of project to be involved in.
“Low-cost housing is quite possibly the most challenging type of project to be involved in. The project demanded a high level of innovation, but at a cost that ensured the project made the widest impact possible within a tight budget. “To achieve this as successfully as the project team working on the CRU refurbishment programme did, was truly something to be very proud of,” says Johan Keuler, Zutari Major Projects Director.
Zutari was awarded the ‘Housing Project of the Year’ award by the City of Cape Town for the project; and was the winner of the community upliftment category at the Institute of Municipal Engineering of Southern Africa’s (IMESA), as well as the community-based projects category at South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) Project Awards in 2012.
*The Aurecon Africa business has been officially renamed Zutari as at 21 July 2020. Zutari acquired Aurecon Middle East on 20 November 2020.
