{"id":808739,"date":"2025-01-27T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=808739"},"modified":"2025-01-27T09:12:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T07:12:45","slug":"what-south-africas-new-multi-billion-smart-city-with-its-own-international-airport-looks-like-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/808739\/what-south-africas-new-multi-billion-smart-city-with-its-own-international-airport-looks-like-today\/","title":{"rendered":"What South Africa\u2019s new multi-billion smart city with its own international airport looks like today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Lanseria Smart City promised a new way of living for 350,000 to 500,000 South Africans. However, years later, it is still only open veld and informal settlements with shacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new smart city gained prominence after President Cyril Ramaphosa promoted it in his 2020 State of the Nation Address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA new smart city is taking shape in Lanseria, which 350,000 to 500,000 people will call home within the next decade,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year later, he said the Lanseria Smart City, the first new city to be built in a democratic South Africa, is now a reality in the making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Ramaphosa first mentioned it in 2020, the Lanseria Smart City has its origins in 2007, when it was still known as Cradle City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cradle City was set to be the first South African city built around an airport, which has been achieved successfully overseas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2008, the Cradle City website stated that it is one of the most ambitious property developments in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The developers said the new Cradle City will be conveniently located with excellent infrastructural and transport links.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis mega project involves the development of a city which will offer its inhabitants the luxuries of time, security, and sustainability through well-planned execution,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project gained traction, and Crosspoint and the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements planned to implement the Lanseria Airport City Mega Project over ten years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crosspoint has also partnered with the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) to develop the 90-hectare Lanseria Business District as part of the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The draft master plan for the Greater Lanseria Growth Node was released for public comment in November 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It highlighted that the new smart city is a joint initiative of the Presidency, the Office of the Gauteng Premier, the City of Tshwane, the City of Johannesburg, and Mogale City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aim is to create the first post-apartheid city in South Africa based on best practices in urban sustainability and the principles underpinning the smart city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is to be inclusive of the broadly defined South African socio-economic spectrum and must stimulate a vibrant, mixed urban economy,\u201d the masterplan states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city would be built surrounding Lanseria International Airport, north of Johannesburg, in a project which would take around 25 years to complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sitting in the centre of the development, the airport will be the main economic driver for the city\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strong residential growth in the surrounding areas is expected which would be supported by improvements to existing roads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building a new smart city<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Lanseria Smart City is set to be an innovative, sustainable, and green environment designed to \u201cinterface with nature\u201d to ensure minimal environmental impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It aims to move urban sustainability beyond existing planning, engineering, and urbanisation paradigms to increasingly appropriate levels of sustainability and innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project aims to move beyond \u2018leading-edge\u2019 approaches into what may now be \u2018bleeding edge\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a strong focus on limiting the need to commute using cars. It wants the city\u2019s residents to use walking, cycling, and public transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In planning terms, people must be able to walk to work, shopping malls, or schools within 5 minutes (400 meters) and 10 minutes (800 meters).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current plan is to make the lateral extent of an activity zone within this new city roughly 1600 meters, a 10-minute walk in any direction from its epicentre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a service is not available within one activity zone, safe, reliable, and affordable public transport should be available to access it further afield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The planning also heavily focuses on smart technologies, including the latest mobile technologies, Wi-Fi, and high-speed broadband connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe city will be built on smart technology and systems in a way that is helpful to all residents, companies, businesses, and visitors,\u201d the city said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To further increase the appeal of the city, there are plans to expand the Lanseria International Airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lanseria International Airport is exploring different options for expansion, which could include the extension of the existing runway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To accommodate the increased traffic to and from the Lanseria International Airport, existing roads will have to be upgraded, and new roads will have to be built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional interchanges, subways, bridges, and service lanes are planned to enhance the current road system around the airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lanseria Business Gateway will be located on 130 hectares of prime real estate between Lanseria Airport and the upmarket Blair Atholl Golf Estate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be a 24-hour smart city zone that will offer retail, conference, and business facilities. It will also host the Lanseria luxury hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make the Lanseria Smart City safe for residents and workers, the streets, sidewalks, marketplaces, and parks will be well-policed and well-lit at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city’s public areas are aimed at street life and social interaction, and the design of the buildings facing these areas will encourage this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lanseria Smart City broke ground<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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On 28 October 2024, the Lanseria Smart City broke ground with a R320 million water treatment plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This 18-month development will produce two megalitres daily using advanced membrane-aerated biofilm reactor technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi hailed the project as essential to fulfilling President Cyril Ramaphosa’s vision of a modern smart city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The water treatment plant represents phase 1 of the larger smart city initiative, which includes a wastewater treatment facility designed to process 50 million litres of sewage daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The water treatment plant is funded with over R320 million from Invest International Capital and Exim Finance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It aims to address critical infrastructure needs in Lanseria while substantially reducing its environmental impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plant is expected to save 300,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually and reuse 90% of processed water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crosspoint Property Investments, the lead contractor, aims to tackle water and sanitation gaps in Lanseria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon completion, the plant will provide potable water to approximately 1,800 residents and open over 300,000 square meters of commercial space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the Lanseria Smart City looks like today<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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BusinessTech visited the area where the Lanseria Smart City will be built and found that very little has happened since Ramaphosa punted it in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramaphosa stated it is an \u201cactual city that is rising from the ground up\u201d. However, there was no evidence of anything \u2018rising from the ground up\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said they had \u201cput together an innovative process that will fund the electricity, water, digital infrastructure and roads that will be the foundation of this new city\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our visit to the area did not show any infrastructure development. Apart from the Lanseria International airport, we saw large stretches of open land and growing informal settlements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were numerous shacks in the area, which may pose problems when the time comes to develop the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, a group of unlawful occupants on the Lindley Farms property who were not evicted before the sale caused big problems for the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The land occupiers obtained Extension of Security of Tenure (ESTA) rights through time for being tenants of Lindley Farms in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What started as a seemingly minor issue evolved into a major problem which stalled the development of the Lanseria mega smart city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same may happen when it comes to the rapidly growing number of informal settlements on land needed for the Lanseria Smart City development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lanseria Smart City plans<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What the Lanseria Smart City looks like today<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Lanseria Smart City promised a new way of living for 350,000 to 500,000 South Africans. However, years later, it is still only open veld and informal settlements with shacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":808742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12755],"tags":[21547,21546,20266],"class_list":["post-808739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","tag-cradle-city","tag-lanseria-smart-city","tag-president-cyril-ramaphosa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808739"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":808778,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808739\/revisions\/808778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}