Belhar CBD

Adjacent to the University of the Western Cape and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Belhar is a mixed-use, high-density residential project valued at R1,3 billion. The phased development will consist of approximately 3 616 units comprising various types of residential units and forms of tenure that have specific economic target markets of social housing (subsidised rental), open market rental units, student accommodation, open market GAP units as well as a small number of freestanding open market bonded units. The total land area is 30,3 ha.

The client, Calgro M3 Developments, will incorporate various energy saving technologies such as solar water heaters, heat pumps, improved insulation, gas, etc. Residential recycling projects, food gardening and urban greening initiatives are also being considered. Besides the green component, these measures will reduce electricity demand by the development and make the township socially and visually more attractive.

Inani was appointed to provide civil engineering services consisting of the upgrading of bulk and link infrastructure, bulk earthworks, construction of roads and parking, stormwater, sewer, water, sanitation and fire reticulation for the residential development of multi-storey walk-ups.

The earthwork played a key role in ensuring that the ground floor footprint remained low. The positioning of buildings and the narrowly spaced parking layout required careful planning to ensure a practical roll-out. In general, these types of developments require critical mass and services need to be carefully planned. The design drawing proved challenging, as the spatial planning needed to consider the practical component of vehicle movement as well as the stormwater requirements.

Inani optimised the earthwork design of each building to ensure that the earthwork component was cut to a minimum, reducing the need for extra ground floor stairs and optimising the parking layout for the ground floor levels. A cost-effective solution was created by providing a user-friendly level difference for ground level and parking interface. The stormwater solution involved utilising different high points and optimising runoff toward different catchments. Both the civil contractor and the building contractor were on-site simultaneously.