M.Phil. / The urban environment, as a concentration of human industrial activity, has an ecological footprint extending well beyond its geographic borders. The reactive nature of Environmental Impact Assessment methodologies focuses on impacts in the natural environment, and mitigation thereof, rather than the causes, and since cities incorporate only limited natural resources, their impact on the larger environment is easily overlooked within the urban setting. Urban design and planning aims to guide urban development, and in order for such development to occur sustainably in the natural, built, social and economic environments, a strategic approach to environmental assessment must be followed. This study explores the merits of a strategic environmental assessment as a pro-active methodology to guide urban master-plan development at precinct level towards more sustainable urban layout and form. The Civic Precinct of the newly formed Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, to be established within the heart of Germiston, South Africa, serves as a case study. Having contextualized strategic assessments in an urban environment on the basis of a literature review, the study defines the development vision on the basis of higher-tier strategic documents and planning frameworks formulated for Ekurhuleni. Screening explores the legal parameters, and serves to define a vision specifically for sustainability of the Civic Precinct. Scoping has been conducted with reference to existing research data available from highertier studies and GIS databases, and at precinct-specific level fieldwork has provided both qualitative and quantitative status quo data, which have been transferred onto maps to highlight resources and constraints. At an applied level this study has yielded direct outcomes: i) A matrix of criteria for sustainability in the urban environment has been generated from the United Nations Agenda 21, and the Plan of Implementation from the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002), supplemented by assessment criteria of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighbourhood Development Rating System. The matrix forms a generic checklist for planners and designers, applicable also in other urban renewal projects. ii) The review of higher-tier planning documentation for Ekurhuleni, supplemented by fieldwork, has provided a comprehensive set of qualitative and quantitative data relating to the environment of the Ekurhuleni Civic Precinct. iii) By relating the results of the fieldwork, through a SWOT analysis, to the predetermined criteria for sustainability, a project-specific set of sustainability guidelines has been formulated. These guidelines are direct design informants for the master-plan, and become specifications for sustainability of individual projects to be implemented in the context of the master-plan. Through these outcomes the case study demonstrates that an adapted strategic environmental assessment methodology offers an effective tool for pro-active focus on sustainability in lower-tier, pre-implementation urban planning and design processes. The study, however, also indicates that the geographic confines of an urban precinct may be too restrictive to do justice to all dimensions of sustainability which make up an urban system, and suggests that application of the SEA methodology should be explored at the broader level of the local spatial development plan, where the SEA methodology may be more economically applied. The local spatial development plan offers a more appropriate level at which to conduct strategic environmental assessment, since it offers a broader scope for strategic consideration of the interconnectedness of all spheres of sustainability, while still permitting sufficient detail in the outcomes to make a concrete difference to the sustainability of an urban design when implemented.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:6927 |
| Date | 04 October 2010 |
| Creators | Malan, Johan Christoph |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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