CPUT students assist in R3.5 million upgrade to informal settlement
HIGH PRAISE: Cape Town mayor Patricia De Lille with Flamingo Heights children outside the newly built crèche.
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
A Cape Flats informal settlement is the latest to have received a multi-million rand facelift with the help of CPUT students.
The new-look Flamingo Crescent settlement in Lansdowne was officially launched in February by the mayor of Cape Town Patricia De Lille, after a three and a half year wait.
The camp, which is now called Flamingo Heights after its revamp, used to have only two taps and seven working toilets for 102 households while the walkways were water logged and unhygienic.
Thanks to a R2.6 million cash injection from the city the camp now features a tap and toilet for every household, service roads for emergency vehicles, a newly built crèche and new fire resistant dwellings.
CPUT’s Town and Regional Planning students assisted the development by engaging with the community during the remapping process. The completed project now means that every household has its own address and is able to receive mail.
BEFORE: A view of what the informal settlement looked like in 2014
Lecturer Rayner Moodley says the Flamingo Heights project was a tangible example of how planners need to be involved from the very start.
“Flamingo Heights is a fantastic real life story, after four years we finally have a completed model that epitomizes how community partnerships which are facilitated by professional planners and academia can produce a successful output,” he says.
AFTER: The revamped Flamingo Heights
Lecturer Nicholas Pinfold says the Flamingo Heights project epitomizes the spirit of Ubuntu.
“It has created collective knowledge and experience among people through the process of learning and doing together in the spirit of Ubuntu,” he says.
Written by Lauren Kansley
Tel: +27 21 953 8646
Email: kansleyl@cput.ac.za
Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.
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