City and Greater Tygerberg Partnership renew cooperation
to create a better future for Bellville
The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, Alderman James Vos, held an engagement this week with the Greater Tygerberg Partnership (GTP) where he announced the City government’s continued cooperation with the development facilitation agency for socio-economic development in the greater Tygerberg area.
This partnership brings renewed assurance for Capetonians in the catchment area that the regenerative initiatives run by the GTP will continue to grow into 2023.
Under the partnership, the City’s Bellville Future City Masterplan, which aims to transform the greater Tygerberg area into a second central business district, will push ahead.
‘Supporting the development of economic nodes across the metro is absolutely vital in order to realise opportunities for more Capetonians. This means that we can also showcase the wealth and variety of potential investments to a global audience of businesses and corporations,’ said Alderman Vos.
The GTP plays a pivotal role in ensuring that alignment is reached between the visions of the City government and the education, private and public sectors of Bellville. Projects in the pipeline include a community cycling initiative, experimenting with biofuel as a solution to food waste, urban greening projects, the installation of public art, the expansion of the trolley recycling and zero waste schools project, and many more.
‘We are very pleased that we will continue our work with the City of Cape Town and look forward to working with Alderman Vos and his team,’ says CEO of the GTP Warren Hewitt.
‘Preserving relationships with organisations such as the GTP remains high on the City’s priority list. The agency and the City will work closely to create the innovation district, a zone specifically designed to draw public and private investment, attract entrepreneurs, start-ups, business incubators, and ultimately revitalise certain areas. Non-motorised transport alternatives – such as cycling – are also on the cards,’ said Alderman Vos.
‘Ultimately, a systemic challenge – like so many we face in Bellville – demands a systemic solution. That is the principle that guides all our interventions,’ said Hewitt.
‘The GTP will work on creating initiatives that ensure better safety, security, management of public spaces, social development interventions and road infrastructure maintenance, as well as aim to alleviate wherever possible any concerns and challenges the public are facing,’ he continued.
Over 2022, the GTP will continue to link and consolidate their successful projects to multiply their impact. Their interventions in environmental and waste management such as the Zero Waste Schools Project and The Trolley and Recycling project show immense potential and have both received awards and international attention. City funding covers the development of the project and private funding covers the R50 000 installation expense at each school.
Through keeping their fingers on the analytical pulse of Bellville, the GTP also plans to invest more optimally into research and innovation within the district and involve different stakeholders in finding innovative solutions in the area.
‘Our role is to understand the composition and personality of the Bellville area and the intricacies that are unique to it so that we may design tailored interventions with the City of Cape Town that will actually work,’ said Hewitt.
If the successes of the last term are anything to go by this agreement will lead to positive, said Hewitt. Past projects include the Sha’p Left Nursing Hub, located in Bellville’s busy Public Transport Interchange, which is helping to give affordable, accessible primary healthcare for any one of the 30 000 people passing through on their commute every day.
The Trolley and Recycling project matches businesses with operators who move through Bellville with custom-designed trolleys to collect recyclable waste and remove the waste to buy-back centres in exchange for a small income.
In conjunction with the funding received from the public sector, the GTP acts as a facilitator between their public sector partners and private sector network.
‘Tygerberg and the surrounding areas are vital to greater Cape Town’s economic growth. There are several construction projects under way such as that of a mixed-use precinct at Parow Centre and Stellenbosch University’s Biomedical Research Institute. The area also boasts more than 220 retail companies. Several key retail developments are also under way, such as the building of high-tech storage centres for a major shopping chain. I’m very happy to share that investment values in the area between 2015 and 2019 were more than R600 million per year. Between 2010 and 2021, approved building works in the area reached R7.3 billion. The partnership with GTP is essential to unlocking further opportunities in the area and I look forward to working closely with their team,’ said Alderman Vos.
The three years ahead are filled to the brim with potential. As an influential private organisation that is intimately knowledgeable about the area, the GTP is well equipped to create large-scale social and economic change.