Discussing Collaborative Planing in Cape Town? A case ... · Discussing Collaborative Planing in Cape Town every new situation of planning and its different actors. The approach is

Antje Heyer 51st ISOCARP Congress 2015 Discussing Collaborative Planing in Cape Town

Discussing Collaborative Planing in Cape Town? A case study on insitu informal settlement upgrading and the role

of planners and local government in bottom-up projects.

Antje HEYER; Stockholm University, Sweden

1. Introduction: Informal UrbanisationCities are worldwide growing and in 2050 around 66% of the world population are expectedto be living in urban agglomerations (UN 2014). Hereby the so called Global South andespecially the African Continent, are the most rapidly increasing regions. What has beencalled informal settlements or slums, are the main driver of the urbanisation process, yetoften poorly acknowledged by governments and authorities. A rapid rise of the informality hasalso been taken over in South Africa where the after Apartheid government has startedseveral programmes to fight the increase of informal settlements and 'provide the poor withdecent shelter' until 2003 (White paper on Housing). However, these goals have obviouslynot been reached so far as the number of informal settlements has increased from 300 to2600 since 1994 (CORC Annual Report 2014). In 1999 South Africa, developed the 'Citieswithout Slums' action plan which became part of the UN-millennium goals 'to have achieveda significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers' by 2020 (CitiesAlliance).

In practice however, South African municipalities still consider informal settlements asthreatening towards the society and cities, since local governments have not managed tocope with the situation. Therefore many municipalities run a security driven approach, whichin fact means that new informal structures get demolished or entire settlements get evicted.Even though the national Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (UISP) waslaunched in 2009, which clearly focusses on the participation of local residents into anupgrading process, this practice has mainly been failed to implement. Informal settlementsare still considered as temporary and their negative aspects are on focus, yet neglecting thatthese are still homes to millions of people.

This article presents a summary of my Master Thesis, dealing with the question of how tocope with this rising informality in a more participatory approach that includes residents andvalues their experience in the planning process. The Thesis is written in the field of UrbanPlanning at Stockholm University in Spring 2015, yet will be finalized in October the sameyear. Purpose of the field research was the South African Alliance of 'Shack/ Slum DwellersInternational' (SDI SA) and their four local partner organisations: Informal SettlementsNetwork (ISN), Community Organisation Resource Centre (COURC), the Federation of theUrban and Rural Poor (FEDUP) and the uTshani Fund.

Among other projects, these organisations engage into what has been called 're-blocking', afrom of participatory informal settlement upgrading where the residents can not only stay intheir communities but also have the chance to design their surrounding built environment.Re-blocking has been practiced for five years now in Cape Town as a local implementation ofthe National Housing Policy UISP. The City of Cape Town is not only supporting theseprojects but officially acknowledge them as future solution of how to deal with the increasingnumber of these settlements (City of Cape Town 2013).

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Nonetheless the practice of re-blocking remains challenging as many actors and ideas cometogether and have to find mutual solutions, mainly following the wishes and needs of theresidents instead of municipal top-down planning. Therefore, this article refers to the planningapproach of collaborative planning which has been developed since the 1980s in order toshift away from the failed grand top-down ideas of planning (Healey 1997: 32) towards amore participatory and democratic solution. The article challenges the often criticisedpracticability of collaborative planning and the question whether it is actually 'doable'.Considering the major increase of population and cities in the so called Global South, itraises hereby not only the question to what extend collaborative planning is practicallydoable in the Global South. Yet mainly whether it is legitimate as it is based on occidentalideas and theories which are not the same as locally diverse cultures. The Researchquestions are:

1. To what extent can 're-blocking', as a participatory practice of urban poor communityin insitu informal settlement upgrading processes, be evaluated as successfulcollaborative planing?

2. To what extent can the practice of re-blocking contribute towards more inclusive citiesand a better implementation of the collaborative housing policies in South Africa?

2. Methods and Collection of DataThe data for the Thesis was gathered by myself as a single researcher in almost eight weeksfield study in Cape Town, South Africa, from March to April 2015. My research focusses onthe work of the SDI Alliance South Africa and especially the role of the local partner NGOCORC (Community Organisation Resource Centre) and the ISN (Informal SettlementNetwork) and FEDUP (Federation of the Urban Poor) in Cape Town. I recorded 15 semi-structured interviews and beyond that many more semi-formal interviews were taken but notrecorded. The interviews generally focused on the challenges that have come up during theprojects, the quality of communication between the different partners and what could beimproved in their work relation. Also I asked explicitly about important learning outcomes andhow the interviewees see the future of the projects and partners.

The interviewees have been:

• Local community leaders and Community steering committee – members of the ISNor FEDUP; the ISN president;

• Architects, Planners, Policy Experts and Managers of CORC;

• Project Manger of the City of Cape Town;

• Department of Housing; Project Partner Habitat for Humanity – Policy Researcher

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3.Urbanisation and Collaborative PlanningSince re-blocking is a participatory practice in which communities, several NGOs, grass-rootorganisations and representatives from the City of Cape Town discuss and plan together, itcan be declared as practice of collaborative planning. This article raises the question howcollaborative planning can work in the Global South with the example of re-blocking in CapeTown. Hereby it aims to analyse which learning outcomes can be drawn from the caseexample for the practice of collaborative planning and more participatory planningapproaches in general. In a first step, the idea, aims and challenges of collaborative planningwill be briefly elaborated in the following.

In the 1980s the approach of collaborative planing has become popular and ever sinceremained challenging the grand ideas of Modernist planning. In the field of collaborativeplanning one of the main authors is undisputedly Patsy Healey with her book 'CollaborativePlanning – Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies' (1997, 2006). In contrast to the top-down Master Plans of the 20th century there are no specific plans, rules or policies how tooperate collaborative planning as the approach in itself aims to be flexible and adjustable to

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Illustration 1: Internal Structure of SDI SA and Relation towards communities. Source: Antje Heyer


every new situation of planning and its different actors. The approach is based on the theoryof social constructivism and as a result it argues that if actors, ideas and problems can neverbe the same, there can neither be a generalized model applying to every situation.Nonetheless guidelines have been developed out of good practice and experience. Healeyargues that if different stakeholders and ideas come together, collaborative planning shallmotivate them to discuss and challenge their ideas, ideologies and habits. Therefore, anopen communication and transparency as well as honesty are important criteria forsuccessful collaboration.

3.1 Good Practice of Collaborative Planning and its Critic

Consequently the role of planners has shifted from the dominating Master planners towardsmediators between the different actors. Forester (1993) summarizes the position of plannersin collaborative planning as a ‘critical friend’. Healey goes beyond this and speaks ofplanners as a ‘knowledge mediator and broker’ (1997: 309). Brand & Gaffikin agree on themediating point and position planners as intermediary facilitators, as 'someone who createsthe platforms where an interactive and non-hostile discourse among equals can take place'(2007: 291).

However, collaborative planning has also been criticised as utopia and not practical sincepower relations, hidden agendas and corruption would always intervene and prevent an opendiscussion. In fact the researchers Brand & Gaffikin (2007) who had analysed collaborativeplanning efforts in Northern Ireland found that transparency and a truly open discussion werenot happening: poor population groups remained marginalised and rich and influential groupsremained seeking direct ways of connections towards the government even though theypretended to be interested and agreeing to the discussion results. Healey (2006) and Innes(2004) are aware of these power relations and that a consensus that will satisfy all partiesequally may not be found, yet they argue even though an idealised process ofcommunication and without power struggles, is utopian, there should nonetheless be theopportunity to communicate in a space which acknowledges diversity and free speech.

3.2 Legitimate Collaborative Planning in the Global South?

When it comes to collaborative planning in the Global South, Watson (2002) criticizes thatthe idea of collaboration with participatory citizens is based on the idea of a functional anddemocratic society. According to this, collaborative planning approaches are based on thefaith that a civil society is capable to be come organised and act democratically, which ismobilised and mainly represented in NGOs and GROs. However, due to socially andeconomically fragmentation in many Sub-Saharan countries, societies would lack a sufficientamount of these supporting organisations. Moreover, many of the existing NGOs and GROswould have a limited scope as they would often not collaborate with the government, sincethey would see it as part of the problems and competition for funding rather than as adeveloping partner. Therefore, NGOs and GROs would be mainly depending on foreignfunding which limits their scope to the funding concept and lifespan of their donors (Watson2002, Sanyal 1991).

Other authors criticise the implementation of collaborative planning in the Global South on anormative base, since the approach would still impose ideas based of Western Thinkers onother cultures, such as Habermas' situation of free speech. Huxley & Yichtafel (1998: 336)strongly criticize that '[…] planning is still portrayed as an unproblematic global activity,adhering to similar logic of communicative rationality wherever it is found.' Similarly, Watsonargues that current planning theory indeed tries to be more cultural sensitive and aware of

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differences but still treats world views and value-systems superficially which would lead to a'conflict of rationalities' (2003: 396). 'This conflict between the rationalities of governing andadministration, and rationalities of survival (of those who are poor and marginalised), offersone way of understanding why, so often, sophisticated and 'best practice' planning and policyinterventions have unintended outcomes […]' (Watson 2002: 2272). Especially as planingwork touches the lives and livelihoods of households and communities (2003: 396), this clashbecomes especially evident when considering that the livelihoods of an increasing part of thepopulation in the Global South are shaped by what is declared as informality i.e. housing,transport, supply of basic services and waste management. Informal settlements are shapedby the nature of this social and economic fabric in contrast to the saturate frameworks thatregulate the formalized city (van Horen 2000: 392).

Therefore, the following section gives a brief overview about the reasons of rise of informalityin South Africa and failed policies that tried to tackle the situation yet failed with itsunintended outcomes, as Watson puts it. This overview is important in order to understandthe challenges and expectation that planning in South Africa bears nowadays and have adirect impact on re-blocking projects.

4. History and Present of Urban Planing in South Africa – from RDP to UISPWith the end of the Apartheid regime, the South African government started to tackle thedramatic housing situation that has been developed through the oppressive regime. Due toeviction and the demolishing of entire neighbourhoods, millions of non-white South Africanshave lost their homes. Many were relocated to the Townships which are remote satellitedistricts with standardised housing yet lacking social infrastructure and job opportunities. Asthe Township areas were undeserved and lacking sufficient space, people started to moveback towards the city centres. However, even though non-whites were prohibited by the'Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act No 52' to own property within the cities, people wereforced to squatter illegally. Hence, large areas of so called informal settlements have beengrowing since the Apartheid until now. In Cape Town of 1980 around 120.000 black residentswere officially enumerated and around 90.000 illegal squatters were estimated (Myers 2011:88). Despite efforts of the democratic ANC government the number of settlements has beengrowing from 300 in 1994 to 2400 settlements in 2010 (CORC Annual Report 2013/14).

4.1 The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP)

In 1994 the ANC government of Nelson Mandela government started the Reconstruction andDevelopment Programme (RDP) following the idea that adequate housing is a human rightand the delivery thereof was a responsibility of the government itself (Ley 2009: 18). Thus,housing should be given for free to the poor income groups of under 3500 Rand per month.Since this honourable and very ambitious approach was launched, around 2.8Mio houseshave been built, yet the number of informal settlements keeps on growing. The reasons forthis have mainly been migration from the rural to urban areas in South Africa itself and theforeign immigration from surrounding, economically and socially less stable countries.However, the construction of the so called RDP houses has been problematic as well, sincethese often lack quality and show up cracks and other damages, which are results ofstruggles with the subsidy allocation but also of corruption among profit oriented developers(Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa 2011: 62). In 2010 the Minister of HumanSettlements announced in the department's budget speech that 10% of its budget, or R1.3billion would had to be used to rectify badly built RDP houses (Prinsloo 2010). Moreover,many families tend to sell or rent out the RDP house they have received, as a source of

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income or due to the fact that the remote location of the RDP settlements does not providesufficient labour opportunities or connection to the city centre. Also, the standardised 40msize houses do not meet the needs of many families which forces them to extend theirhouses with informal shacks (Robins 2002: 521)

4.2 The Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (UISP)

Due to these issues, it became clear that the RDP approach would not be able to fill theincreasing housing backlog and the top-down approach failed to meet the actual needs ofpeople. Therefore, a different solution had to be found and in 2004 the Breaking New Ground(BNG) programme was launched as a more participatory approach which intended to includecommunities. Moreover, it aims for an insitu approach which means that residents, the socalled communities, will not be relocated and their homes demolished but the upgrading willhappen at place, as a more time and cost efficient alternative. However, it took five yearsuntil the National Policy on Housing was revised in 2009 and for the first time contained aguideline of how to implement participatory upgrading, the so called Upgrading of InformalSettlements Programme (UISP).

The UISP is part of the National Upgrading Support Programme (NUSP) provided by theCities Alliance and also the World Bank Institute (Cities Alliance Webpage). NUSP then notonly developed two practical tools which is on the one hand the Urban SettlementDevelopment Grant (USDG) and the Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (UISP).Also, it announced 16 pilot projects, including the N2 project in Cape Town, which should notonly display and study best practice but also help to develop a detailed upgrading strategyfor the whole country (Tissington 2011: 92).

Those pilot projects are however declared as failed (Centre of Housing Rights and Eviction,2009). As for the N2 Gateway project, for instance, half of the residents were still re-locatedin order to make space for high quality apartment houses, which the former resident can notafford. Those re-located people have remained in remote settlements with less jobopportunities and social support. Often projects fail due to political unwillingness to supportlocal communities or even if municipalities want to work communities, they have not tools ormediums how to actually communicate with them. This is because communities are oftenvery large and often not a Gemeinschaft but disrupted through (forced) migration, povertyand criminality. Municipalities have no social workers or similar helpers who are educated towork in the settlements, and the residents themselves are often suspicious towards thegovernment, due to South African history and even after Apartheid instances of corruptionand failure.

Nonetheless, the UISP document itself has been evaluated as a sophisticated and wellorganised programme as it clearly requires the participation of informal settlementcommunities and favours insitu upgrading. Several interviewees stated that they believe ifpartners would truly follow the programme, a successful upgrading could be possible. TheUISP is divided into the following four upgrading phases, which a municipality and itspartners have to follow.

4.2.1 Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (UISP) structure

'The UISP defines that upgrading projects have to be divided in four phases which aresupposed to follow after each other. Whereas Phase 1-3 'focusses on communityparticipation, supply of basic services and security for all residents', Phase 4 is the Housingconsolidation which follows once several settlements have successfully run through the threeprevious phases (UISP: 27). The funding for these projects will be allocated by the provincial

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Minister of Human Settlement through the USDG on an annual basis. Municipalities mayreceive progress payments as the upgrading projects continues.

'Within Phase 1-3, the Programme allocates funding for community capacitation. This isdefined as, for instance: 'Socio-economic surveying of households; Facilitating communityparticipation; Conflict resolution, where applicable' (UISP: 31). Even the acquisition oftraining material and equipment could be required (Ibid: 33). The UISP hence clearly statesthat 3% of the funding is allocated to community capacitation which refers specifically to thework that ISN and CORC focus on. Moreover, 'the programme provides for projectmanagement fees up to an amount not exceeding 8% of the project cost' (ibid: 39).

'Phase 1: Application – Municipalities apply for funding at the provincial government througha business plan which should contain the pre-feasibility of the project as well as details aboutthe Housing Consolidation and the participation of the communities through the IntegratedDevelopment Plan (IDP).

Phase 2: Project Initiation – The municipalities should receive funding for the acquisition ofland, undertaking a socio-economic and demographic profile of the settlement, ageotechnical survey of the allocated land in regards of the environmental impacts and theprovision of interim basic services such as water and sanitation. According to the UISP theseactivities are generally to be undertaken within a time period of 8-12 months.

Phase 3: Project Implementation – The municipality should now submit a final business planwhich has to be approved by the executive council so that advanced follow up fundings canbe paid for: project management capacity, relocation assistance (if necessarily), landrehabilitation, permanent service infrastructure and the construction of social amenities,economic and community facilities.

Phase 4: Housing Consolidation – Once the three previous phases are complemented,houses can be constructed, ownership registration (where appropriate) and any outstandingsocial amenities will be constructed in order to achieve a formalised living area with solidhousing' (Heyer 2015).

Through Phase 1-3 the municipality is responsible for surveying of suitable land andinfrastructure services but not for top-structures which also means that funding will only beallocated for services. Therefore, top-structures, such as shacks in this case, have to beprovided by the supporting NGOs and communities. It is important to notice that shacks canonly be constructed once the ground structures, such as water pipes and electricity areprovided by the municipality. Therefore, all project partners and communities are dependingon the delivery and time plan of the municipality. This has to follow the three UISP Phaseswith its pre-given time frames; for instance Phase 2: Project Initiation, is set for 8-12 month. Amajor fault line of the UISP though is that it does not define how municipalities cancommunicate with communities and how these can participate in the planning which stillremains a major challenges. The following chapter illustrates how the South African SDIAlliance has developed a way to not only mediate between municipality and communities butalso mobilise the latter to engage themselves.

5. Implementation of the UISP: Re-blocking in Cape Town

5.1 What is re-blocking?

'Despite contentious eviction of communities, the City of Cape Town has in 2010 signed for22 pilot projects in insitu informal settlement upgrading in the greater Cape Town area. Thisform of upgrading focusses on supplying basic services, such as water, sanitation and

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electricity in settlements without re-locating the communities but letting them stay during andafter the upgrading process.

In cooperation with the South African Alliance of Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI SA),the partners involved are specifically the Informal Settlements Network (ISN), and the NGOCommunity Organisation Resource Centre (CORC) which have further developed theconcept of re-blocking as a tool for the inclusion of communities into the planning andimplementation of the upgrading process. Re-blocking, which can be used interchangeablywith the term, 'blocking out' has two foci. It is first of all a 'mobilisation tool' for communities tobecome organised, engaged and educated about their living situation and their opportunitiesto change. Second, it is the implementation of a design in which the shacks of an informalsettlement can be arranged in such a way that there is space for basic services such aswater and sanitation. Hence, re-blocking is not only focussing on the exact needs ofcommunities but also on the participation of them into the process.

It means that the old structures ofthe settlements will be torn downand replaced by standardisedhigh quality material shacks.1 Thenew shacks will be almost thesame size as the original ones asin order to sustain equity amongthe households. This means thata family who had around 20m2

before, will get a replacement of20m2. A couple which had maybe8m2 will receive 10m2 since this isthe minimum size of thestandardized replacements. Thereplacing shacks will however notbuild up at the exact spot againbut in a way that there is morespace in the settlement for roadsof at least 3m. This shall function as a fire blockade as well as access for (emergence) cars.Also, in best case there will be space for (more) toilets/ taps and special needs of thecommunity, such as open space for children to play, a creche, a community hall, a so called'jungle gym' or spots for trading.

So far, the SDI partner organisations have successfully completed three re-blocking projects:KuKu Town, Mshini Wam and most recently Flamingo Height. In seven other projects, theprocess could not be finished, due to diverse reasons, such as community internal problemsor the topography of the settlement made insitu upgrading impossible. Hence, the communitymust be relocated and could not be re-blocked.

5.2 The process: How does re-blocking work?

First step: Identifying needs and mobilisation

This section describes a kind of idealised process of re-blocking in order to explain thedifferent steps. There are several ways how a community gets into the process of re-

1 These are generally provided by the NGO iKhayalami. Further information: http://www.ikhayalami.org/, last access: 27-05-15.

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Figure 2: Flamingo Height: before and after re-blocking Source: CORC


blocking. For instance, there have been 22 settlements been selected by the City of CapeTown as pilot projects, others were approached by the ISN themselves due to the precariousliving condition in the community. Sometimes communities themselves contact the ISN orFEDUP as they want to improve their situation. Also, FEDUP has mobilised several savinggroups of women saving money together, which then become active and want to invest intheir built environment. In most of the communities already exist a leadership structure,which might be the oldest or richest person, or a person who had been living in thesettlement for the longest.

Once a community is interested in upgrading, some of their members including theleadership go on an exchange to other communities, such as Mshini Wam or FlamingoHeight which have already upgraded their settlement, in order to see what opportunities theyhave and inform the rest of their community about it. Visualisation has clearly been pointedout as a necessary tool to inform and convince communities. Clearly it lies to some extent inthe human nature to see something before one believes it.

After the exchange, ISN and CORC explain the process of enumeration and profiling to thecommunity and look for volunteers participating in the process. Within the enumeration allstructures, including family shacks, shops and other buildings, for instance a church, will benumbered, measured and the number of household members will be noted down.Information about the social structure of the community will be noted as well, this includesthe number of (un-) employed people, the age structure, persons with special needs, etc.Volunteers from the community, will be advised by the CORC enumeration team to interviewthe residents with the help of an eight pages questionnaire. This process can take up to threemonths, depending on the number of shacks in the settlements and the number of volunteersmeasuring and interviewing. In the meantime the community gets also involved into what iscalled profiling. Despite its maybe misleading name, profiling is in fact an open discussion inwhich the entire community can bring forward its needs and ideas – for instance theprevention of fire or flooding, sanitation and water or maybe a Creche or space for children toplay. This is important because, whereas enumeration focuses on the single households,profiling shall bring the community into an open communication about its status.

Second step: Designing

In the next step the technical team of CORC, which includes architects, planners and ofteninterns, meets up with the community in order to discuss their needs and start planning theproject in a design workshop. By now the community should not only have a leadership butalso formed a volunteering community committee which will represent the interests of theentire community towards CORC. Also they will be constantly engaged into the designingprocess so that they can teach the remaining community about the process, challenges,tasks and next steps. Nonetheless it is recommended that as many members of thecommunity as possible join the design workshop in order to insure that all voices will beheard and considered in the layout. This is especially important in big settlements of up to400 community members.

For the design workshops, the technical team of CORC brings a large (A1 or A4) map orhelicopter- view picture of the settlement to the meeting. This shall help the community tovisualise their surrounding and mark on the picture toilets and taps as well as problem areassuch as spots of flooding, fire, or places of crime. It brings awareness to the community ofwhich services already exist in their settlements and what their needs are. Also, thecommunity marks the doors of the single structures and the structures' functions. This ispracticed in order to get an overview on the map which shacks are living spaces and how

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many families live in one structure, as well as which structures have other functions.

In a next step the community should identify social structures among the residents – such asfamilies who are friends with each other and like to live next to each other and families orhousehold who rather do not. In a best case the new shacks will be placed with a small openspace in between so that people can meet up, and also can watch each others doors andbelongings, such as drying laundry. Therefore, it is important to have representatives fromeach section, corner or other sup-division of the settlement in order place neighbours whowill have this kind of cohesion.

To the design workshop the technical team willbring carton board which can be cut out tosample the shacks and place and move themon the map in order to display the possiblenew design. After the workshop, the technicalteam will work on a proper layout and hand adraft to the community so that they candiscuss it and can work on further ideas for thenext design workshop. Once the communityhas decided on a final draft, it will bepresented to the municipality, which will surveythe land in terms of possibilities for drainageand infrastructure. The municipality will givefinal input and decide on how many toiletboxes and taps can be set up, depending on

the space the layout provides as well as on their own financial capacities. In case ofFlamingo Height, the municipality was able to provide one and one ratio (1:1) service whichmeans there has been enough space for a standardised toilet box in front of every structureand most of the households also received their own tap.

Third Step: Funding and Implementation

In practice however, it can take up to even one and a half years from the point when themunicipality receives the layout by the community and when it finally starts implementing.This because the municipality has to follow certain steps directed by the UISP and timeframes directed by the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA).

First the municipality will survey with its engineering team whether the community layout isready to implement or changes have to be made. After that the municipality can startplanning the budget and apply for funding via the UISP and the USDG (Urban SettlementsDevelopment Gran). This process as well can take up to several months and once fundinghas been allocated, the municipality has to make a public tender invite, which is obligatory forprojects with a budget of R200,000 or more. A public tender invite is a transparent decision-making process in which possible contractors apply and compete for upgrading the project.The MFMA regulates that the time period of this tendering process can take up six months.

The municipality receives funding for upgrading projects by the USDG, which however isrestricted on infrastructure provision, yet it does not fund top-structures, such as shacks orhouses. This is because of the three Phase regulations of the UISP which only allows themunicipality to invest into top-structures once the service upgrading of Phase 1-3 iscompleted. Funding for top-structures, has to be provided by CORC. Nonetheless, the majorproject costs are covered by the municipality. In a rough counting for a shack that cost 6000Rand, the municipality invest 22,000 Rand for infrastructure and services. For the shack itself

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Figure 3: Design Workshop in the community K2 Section Source: CORC 2015


however, 20% of the costs are contributed by the community members themselves (forinstance R1200 in the case of a R6000 shack) which is a large contribution considering theirprecarious financial situation. However, experience has shown that once communitymembers have created a sense of ownership for the project and specifically for their ownshack, they are motivated to maintain it, work on the process and are less likely to quit theproject. This becomes especially clear when remembering the case of RDP which manybeneficiaries sell or not maintain well. Beyond that, the concept of contributing is supposed tounite communities, encourage them to become active and organised and by this show notonly the government but also possible other funders that their community is worth to investin. This has for example been the case for Flamingo Height, where Habitat for Humanityfunded roof panels and windows for the shacks.

Communities do not need to have saved their entire contribution before the constructionstarts yet they should have collected a noticeable amount in order to demonstrate their willand engagement. This has been the case in Flamingo Heights where 95% of the adults havebeen unemployed. This has made the saving especially difficult for the community yetmembers became creative and started with selling single cigarettes or collecting waste as asource of income. Some of them are still paying back their loans today, even though theproject was completed in 2013.

The above described process can be seen as somewhat optimal course, yet in fact alreadyin seven re-blocking projects communities have been lost in the process and quit. There canbe various reasons for this. Some challenges lie in the UISP structures and beyond the reachof the SDI Alliance, whereas some others are created by the difficult social interaction amongthe communities' (Heyer 2015).

5.3 Challenges in the process

Several challenges lie in the communication among communities themselves. As describedabove, these are often socially fragmented and struggle to define common needs andinterests. Therefore, the SDI SA partners emphasize that tasks of mapping and enumerationare less tools to collect data but most importantly tools to bring the community members intoa conversation and build trust among them. This is the main important base so thatcommunities can develop their own design in order to create a sense of ownership andbelonging; which in contrast has often been failed to create through the RDP housing.However, the former project manager of the City of Cape Town, who had been in charge ofthe three completed projects, Flamingo, Mshini Wam and Kuku Town, states in the interviewthat he had to learn to from the NGOs how to share responsibility and let communities solvetheir problems internal. This working style was new to him but he emphasises that anyproject manager could do this job as long as he/she keeps an 'open and honestcommunication' with all stakeholders. Also he emphasized that fixed contact persons aretruly important in order to supply a quick exchange and trust among each other.

Moreover, when communities decide and design themselves, the role of the urban plannersshifts away from the traditional realm towards a more mediating role between the differentactors. One architect of the NGO CORC stated that the biggest mistake one could do in theproject was to neglect or leave behind the community in the process but focus on a gooddesign that serves the personal ideas and standards as an architect or planner but forgettingabout the main principle: the community must run the process and this is more importantthan the solution itself. Therefore CORC runs with the help of ISN as 'a people centredprocess more than anything else.' And the main task of the planners in this case is to help acommunity to find out what their members want and reach these goals, instead of imposing a

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solution. The new role of planners also puts them into the position of negotiating andmediating between the communities and the municipality. The former project manager of theCity of Cape Town, argues that he would not let single community members talk tocontractors or let them make decisions. He had the experience that individuals tried toundermine the common made decisions and take advantage for themselves. For instance,without getting permission from the other stakeholders, a person asked a contractor for atoilet inside of his shack instead of placing it outside of it.

Beyond the community layout which also CORC/ISN agree on, the municipalities have thelast decision on whether a layout can be implemented. This is simply because municipalitiesare according to the UISP responsible for the infrastructure and the feasibility of the layout.Therefore, municipalities make open calls for engineers and other contractors to survey theland and calculate required water and sewage systems etc. However, so far the municipalityof Cape Town has only started to analyse the community layout on its feasibility when it wascomplete finished and the community had invested several month of work in it. Hence, thecommunity members expected that the City of Cape Town would take action soon and startconstructing. However, as the City invests public money, it is obliged to look for contractors inan open call as it is appointed in the UISP Phase 2. In fact this process is estimated for 8-12month which is in fact a long waiting time for communities who then might have to adjusttheir layout again if it does not meet the engineers requests. Obviously this causes frustrationand may lead members to quit the process. On the other hand the former project manageralso stated his experience that communities constantly changed their design which wouldhave delayed the process. Therefore he emphasized that an open but mostly earlier dialoguebetween all partners would improve and speed up the results.

6. Learning outcomes6.1 Space for improvement in Cape Town / UISP

So far Cape Town has been the only city/ municipality engaging into re-blocking, whichstands in contrast to the city still being involved in shack eviction through the Anti-LandInvasion Unit. For the next years, several re-blocking projects are planned and the city hastaken learnings of the completed ones. Overall learning outcomes are the importance ofcommunity ground work and the fact that communities should solve their internal issues selfand that the city can only give guidance. Yet the major learning outcome is that the cityshould join layout designing process as soon as possible in order to save time. So far it hadbeen the case that a community finishes a design and is ready to implement yet this is thepoint when the city starts, checking that layout, calculating costs, and looks for contractorswhich could take up one and a half years while the communities are waiting and loosinginterest. In order to change this, the City of Cape Town has started capacitate more humanresources to interact with communities earlier and guide them in their process. An othermajor benefit would be that communities will become more motivated and easier convincedto engage into up-grading once the municipality shows presence. As stated by the ISN,communities tend to rather believe what an outsider says than what they hear from inside thecommunity and their leadership. Thus, it could make a major difference whether membershear from each other verbally that officials will engage or whether officials themselves visitthe settlements and explain their plan, requirements and engage in the design.

However, it has to be emphasized that the City project management has to follow these timeframes according to the UISP. The first three UISP phases (1) Application; (2) ProjectInitiation and (3) Project implementation requite a specific time frame. Yet, these phasesbasically embrace the steps SDI SA follows with re-blocking as well. Phase 1 and 2 actually

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require community participation and undertaking a socio-economic profile of the settlement,which is exactly the work that SDI SA does, however without being payed as a publiccontractor. This is because when municipalities open a call for a public contractor smallNGOs have difficulties to compete with the consulting firms that normally get commissionedwith community facilitations tasks. However, Phase 1-3 of the UISP follow similar steps asthe process SDI SA and the communities go through: Identifying needs and mobilisation,Designing and Implementing. Hence re-blocking is a successful application of the UISPwhich not only has lead to the upgrading of the living conditions but also to their mobilisationand engagement. Moreover, the practical implementation of the UISP through re-blockingalso shows its fault lines, as it clearly requires community participation yet it does not specifyhow municipalities shall manage this. Therefore NGOs and GROS play an important role, asmediators and facilitators which should however be more (financially) acknowledged in theprocess. An update of the UISP stating that these kind of organisations can apply for fundingcosts and may be preferred if they are suitable, would help NGOs and GROs to continuetheir work, as many are depending on donor organisations and their agendas (see alsoWatson 2002, Sanyal 1991).

6.2 What can be learned from re-blocking in Cape Town as a process of Collaborative Planning?

The UISP itself is a well thought through programme which could lead to a major progress inSouth Africa's treatment of informal settlements. Even though the national government isuniting with community Grassroot Organisations and SDI SA, many projects struggle or failon the unwillingness of local governmental officials to expect the programme and letcommunities participate. However, even if they wanted to, most municipalities do not knowhow to communicate and work with communities. Considering the history and the politicalsituation of South Africa this is understandable yet not immutable. The UISP started with 22pilot projects which were supposed to show best practice and learning outcomes of how toimplement the UISP. None of these have succeeded in the sense that insitu upgrading wastaking place and that communities participated. Thus, it might be time to discuss itsdisadvantages and revise the UISP. It is clear that the national government and Departmentof Housing can not determine how municipalities engage with its citizens as somewhatflexibility towards the local circumstances is wanted. This state of mind is also displayed inthe approach of collaborative planning, which refuses to set up rules but gives guidelines ofopen communication and discussion. However, many municipalities miss this openness andlack a board for exchange, towards their citizens but also among each other.

After all what could be learned from this specific case of re-blocking is the importance ofcommunication but also to set a medium where exchange of ideas can happen. Allstakeholders of a multilayer project must have clear rules where and how to to approacheach other in order to avoid clientelism. Moreover, they must come together as soon aspossible in order to avoid waiting time, misunderstandings and frustration but build on hightrust from the beginning. Legal frameworks should be the main guideline but give space forflexibility in order to adapt to local situations. Also they should be adjustable in case projectreveal fault lines in the framework or simply that issues on the ground should be solveddifferently. The case of South Africa shows the importance of communication between thelocal and national governmental level since their (political) mindsets may differ from eachother. Therefore, a clear medium and rules of communication as well as fixed contactpersons are important.

Moreover, Basil van Horen, who had been the project manager of an early upgrading project

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in Durban in South Africa, formulated out of his experience the following criteria for goodcollaborative planning in an informal environment. He set up the following criteria that bear ageneral value for planning (van Horen 2000: 395):

• planning must happen literally on the ground, which means that residents mustparticipate on all levels of the process in order to keep up with social and physicalchange

• planning should evolve out of the process, rather being set from the beginning – amasterplan will set limits right from the beginning will not cope with theses changes

• 'While planning needs to be grounded in an understanding of micro settlement-leveldynamics, it must be linked to an understanding of the macro political and economicforces that provide the context for settlement growth' (van Horen 2000: 393).

• cooperative autonomy: indicates that the local decision making structure should belinked with the institution of power in order to ensure that different planningapproaches are accepted, though 'the relationship between project decision-makingstructures and government should allow local autonomy for project decision-making.

7. ConclusionRe-blocking as a form of informal settlement upgrading is not only valuable in South Africa.Considering the growth of the informal sector in housing, transportation, economy, etc., it isan example of how to approach informality not as a threat but as the normal way of living formillions of people every day which therefore must be taken seriously. Beyond the aspects ofinformality, re-blocking has shown that collaborative planning is able to succeed, even infragmented societies such as the South African. The challenging process bears learningoutcomes that have value for planning in general, especially when considering that top-downapproaches such as the modernist planning of the 1960s, have lead on the long term tosocio-economic stress and fragmentation. Collaborative planing aims flexibility towards localideas and yet on the other side it requires clear guidelines of how to communicate andthrough which media. Roles and positions must be set for all actors in order to maintain anoverview about the process and decisions. Therefore, collaborate planning displays aplanning approach that is based on exchanges and learning that becomes more and moreimportant in an glocalising world in which cities strive for global competition and connection,yet citizens ask for more participation and influence on their neighbourhoods and regions.The case example reveals on the one hand the struggles of the implementation of nationalprogrammes on the local ground. On the other hand it shows how these struggles and bestpractice of local projects can contribute to the better understanding of (national) frameworksand also suggest improvements.

Literature and References:Brand, R. & Gaffikin, F. (2007): Collaborative planning in an uncollaborative world. Planning

Theory, 6(3), pp. 282-313.

Centre on Housing Rights and Eviction (2009): N2 Gateway Project: Housing Rights Violations as 'Development in South Africa. Geneva.

Cities Alliance: Cities without Slum Action Plan: http://www.citiesalliance.org/cws- action-plan.

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City of Cape Town (2013): City’s plan to overhaul Cape Town’s informal settlements gets the go-ahead:

http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/Pages/CityplantooverhaulCTinformalsettlementsahead.aspx.

Community Organisation Resource Centre (2013/14): Annual Report. Building Inclusive Cities. South African SDI Alliance. Cape Town

Department on Housing South Africa (1994): White Paper A New Housing Policy and Strategy for South Africa:

http://www.dhs.gov.za/sites/default/files/legislation/Policies_Housing_White_Paper.pdf.

Forester, J. (1989): Planning in the Face of Power, University of California Press, Berkeley.

Forester, J. (1993): Critical Theory, Public Policy and Planning Practice: Toward a Critical Pragmatism. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Healey, P., (1997): Collaborative Planning – Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. Houndmills and London: Macmillan.

Healey, P., (2006): Collaborative planning: shaping places in fragmented societies. NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Heyer, A. (2015): Master Thesis: Opportunities for Collaborative Planning in South Africa? Ananalysis of the practice 're-blocking' by the South African SDI Alliance in Cape Town. Stockholm University.

Huxley, M. & Yichtafel, O. (1998): New paradigm or old myopia? Unsettling the ‘communicative turn’ in planning theory. Paper presented to Planning Theory Conference, Oxford, February.

Innes, J. E., & Booher., D. E., (1999): Consensus building and complex adaptive systems: a framework for evaluating collaborative planning. Journal of the American PlanningAssociation 65(4), pp. 412-422.

Ley, J. (2009): Juggling with Formality and Informality in Housing: Some Lessons from the New South Africa. In: Urban Informalities. Reflections on the Formal and the Informal., McFarlane, C. & Waibel, M., (eds), Farnhem and Burlington: Ashgate.

Robins, S., (2002): Planning 'Suburban Bliss' in Joe Slovo Park, Cape Town. In: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 72 (4), pp. 511-548. Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute.

Prinsloo, L. (2010): NHBRC to crack down on unregistered home builders. In: Engenieering News: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/nhbrc-to-crackdown-on-unregistered-home-builders-2010-05-12.

Sanyal, B. (1991): Antagonistic FCooperation: A Case Study of Nongovernmental Organizations, Government and Donors' Relationships in Income-Generating Projects in Bangladesh. World Development, Vol. 19 (3), pp. 1367-1379, Pergamon Press pie.

Tissington, K., (2011): A Resource Guide to Housing in South Africa 1994-2010. Legislation,Policy, Programmes and Practice. Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, Cape Town.

United Nations (2014): World Urbanisation Prospects: http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world-urbanization-prospects-2014.html, New York.

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Van Horen, B. (2000): Informal Settlement Upgrading: Bridging the Gap Between the De Facto and the De Jure. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 19, 389–400. Association ofCollegiate Schools of Planning.

Watson, V., (2002): The usefulness of normative planning theories in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, Planning Theory, 1(1), pp. 27–52. Sage Publications.

Watson, V. (2003): Conflicting rationalities: implications for planning theory and ethics. Planning. Theory &Practice. 4(4), pp. 395–407. Routledge.

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