Play your part to make Joburg the inner city sparkle
24 October 2017
Are you a creative resident of Johannesburg bursting with innovative ideas and eager to see them come to life in the inner city?
Then look no further. Come pitch your ideas and help the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) improve the current state of the inner city.
The JDA, the City of Johannesburg’s development entity, recently embarked on an exciting initiative “My City, Our Block” geared at transforming and revitalising the inner city in support of Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba’s key priority.
“Public spaces in cities are becoming increasingly important for meeting citizens’ social needs,” says Yasmeen Dinath, who is the Planning Manager at the JDA.
“Rather than experts sitting around a table making the decisions on the design of a street, a block or a whole city by themselves, our approach at the JDA is to work in partnership with local stakeholders to co-produce and co-support the solutions.
“In that way, we’re able to draw on their knowledge of the development context, which ultimately cultivates a far more sustainable sense of ownership, civic pride and citizenship,” adds Dinath.
For the last 16 years, the JDA has played a strategic role in investing funds into projects that kick-start development and investment in key precincts across the inner city.
Through the “My City, Our Block”, the JDA will continue to create formal and informal collaborative partnerships to create sustainable benefits in the inner city. The project will contribute to capital investment in the inner city to improve public spaces.
The JDA’s contribution to the project within each supported partnership will fall between R1 million and R5 million. Inner city stakeholders interested in being part of this project are invited identify small-scale interventions.
Submissions will be assessed as a two-stage competition. The winning entries will combine responsiveness, impact and importantly, sustainability. Application information packs setting out all the requirements for the proposal with supporting documents are currently available and can be downloaded on:
https://www.facebook.com/OurCityOurBlock
Or
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3ka1pf27o1v74e4/AADOcc0RSxf0GSBHs43jtlC8a?dl=0
Or
A CD can be collected from the Reception Desk of the JDA Offices, located in the Bus Factory, 3 Helen Joseph Street (formerly President Street), Newtown, Joburg.