A number of interventions have been put on the table to turn Joburg's inner city into a vibrant artistic and cultural hub, cementing the city's reputation as the cultural capital of the country.

By 2009, the City will redevelop parks in and around the inner city, including The Wilds in Houghton

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F several councillors have their way, the inner city will, over the next few years, become a very different place in which to live, play and work. There'll be more parks, playgrounds, walkable streets, iconic public places, public events and art, and a vamped-up programme of arts and culture, to enhance and establish firmly Joburg's reputation as the cultural capital of the country.

All this excitement came out of the draft proposals for the Inner City Regeneration Charter, to be produced in June, discussed at the Inner City Summit on Saturday, 5 May.

There were six sub-sections presented at the summit; under the section on public spaces, arts, culture and heritage, two councillors, Nandi Mayathula-Khoza and Prema Naidoo, consulted with stakeholders on the draft.

Mayathula-Khoza is the member of the mayoral committee for community development and Naidoo is the member for environment.

Public places
By 2015, the City aims to have at least 5 percent of total space in the inner city developed as "quality public open space"; every inner city resident will be within 300 metres of a public open space.

To get to this vision the City will, by December 2007, have drafted an implementation plan for the upgrade and maintenance of currently dysfunctional open spaces and parks. By March 2009, redeveloped parks will include the Alec Gorschell Park, the Donald Mackay Park, both in Berea, the End Street Park, the Pieter Roos Park in Hillbrow and The Wilds in Houghton.

By March 2008, new spaces will be identified as public spaces, to be developed as "partnership places". These will be co-designed and co-managed with communities. Buildings will also be identified as potential public spaces, to be demolished.

A continuous open space spine is also to be investigated, linking the Yeoville Ridge, Pullinger Kop and the End Street Park, crossing the railway line south of the Johannesburg Art Gallery and cutting across the new Park Station precinct to the original Park Station building opposite Brickfields. A management agreement will be in place by September 2008.

Other public spaces to be investigated by March 2008 include the Braamfontein Cemetery, a park around Hillbrow Tower, a park east of the Supreme Court, one west of Joe Slovo Drive, and a space east of the Standard Bank super block.

Walkable streets
To ensure that people can enjoy these public spaces, the City needs to upgrade streets that are at present "un-refurbished, cluttered and, in particular, un-walkable after dark".

By December 2007, it will have developed a "comprehensive inner city streetscape/public environment upgrade", with plans to implement this by March 2011. It will include everything from new paving, planting trees, clean public amenities and the provision of refuse bins, to the replacement of manhole covers.

Exciting plans for priority streets and precinct areas, to be implemented by December 2009, include making Rissik Street a boulevard, Diagonal and Eloff streets "pedestrian priorities", and completing Main Street eastwards to link with the Absa campus.

Key precinct areas will include Hillbrow-Berea, the fashion district and others still to be determined.

The inner city now boasts several iconic public places such as the Drill Hall

Iconic public places
Several iconic public places have been completed over the past few years: Constitution Hill, Drill Hall and Mary Fitzgerald Square. Another project, the Gauteng provincial government precinct and square, is still on the drawing board, but it will become another Joburg iconic public place.

However, it is felt that the present iconic places are not reaching their full potential. A goal of the charter is to see these places reach their full potential and achieve full operational sustainability. A management and financing model will be drawn up by December 2007.

The City is committed to developing other key iconic public places, with feasibility and business plans finalised by March 2008. These may include the Old Park Station and the Gauteng square.

By march 2010 the site of the Workers' Library in Newtown will be rehabilitated to form a world-class museum of labour migration.

The visual cityscape
The City is concerned about the visual appearance of the inner city, in particular, "an excess of inappropriate outdoor advertising and building wraps".

A careful balance needs to be maintained between respecting the rights of property owners and advertisers, while at the same time respecting the desire of the public to not be subjected to a cluttered and unattractive visual cityscape.

This goes hand-in-hand with a desire to maintain the quality of architecture and urban design in a rapidly re-developing inner city.

"The City of Johannesburg wishes to see a visually coherent cityscape without excessive clutter from too many inappropriate outdoor adverts and building wraps, and with quality architecture and urban design appropriate to the local context."

It will review its current policy governing outdoor advertising by December, in consultation with a range of stakeholders. Strict regulations prohibiting the full wrapping of buildings on a semi-permanent or permanent basis are expected.

Public events and art
The City is keen to encourage more active use of open space, particularly in iconic public places and parks. It is planning to scale up its programme of public events, compiling a calendar of possible events on an annual basis, to be sufficiently financed, managed and marketed.

It will work with civil society organisations to support organised activities in parks, specially designed to include children.

In terms of Joburg's public art policy, art interventions and installations will be rolled out in conjunction with the re-development of public spaces and streets.

Networking
The arts, culture and heritage sectors admit to be fragmented regarding communication, interaction and joint action, resulting in poor support from the City and other spheres of government.

Consequently, Johannesburg is proposing a Sectoral Advisory Forum, with the aim of bringing together major stakeholders like the SABC, Witwatersrand and Johannesburg universities, the City and provincial arts and culture departments, the National Arts Council, Constitution Hill, the Arts Alive Consortium, the Market Theatre Foundation, and the co-ordinator of the Inner City Arts Network.

This will be enhanced with the creation of an internally and externally connected Sectoral Network that will operate through irregular networking events and a web-based virtual space for day-to-day interactions between organisations.

By September the City plans to convene the Inner City Sectoral Advisory Forum that will be backed up by a web-based information-sharing portal.

Cultural capital
The City aims to enhance further the perception of Joburg as the cultural capital of South Africa, through a number of interventions. Already the SABC is located in Auckland Park and there are various film-related industries in the suburb; Joburg is also "the clear continental leader in training for the creative and cultural industries".

Among these is the World Summit on Arts and Culture, to take place in 2009, and the Gauteng Creative Industries Development Framework.

The City plans to produce a promotional strategy by March 2008 that will profile the inner city as a cultural capital. In addition, Joburg will promote the concept of a pan-African rotating "City of Culture" through consultation with the national Department of Arts and Culture, the African Union, and other relevant bodies. The concept will be launched at the 2009 world summit.

Improving cultural offerings
It is felt that the current programme of inner city arts and culture events is not being optimised in terms of quantity, diversity, consistency and accessibility. The reasons are many but relate largely to finance and venue constraints.

The City's desired outcome is to increase audience figures for various events it holds, for museums, galleries and heritage sites in the inner city.

It will do this by means of a print and online What's On calendar; a fund for special events will be created, together with the Gauteng department of sports, recreation, arts and culture; Museum Africa will be refurbished; the City Hall will also undergo a refurbishment to equip it for meetings and music events; and a mining museum will be developed.

All venues will be re-assessed with consideration for disabled visitors.

Supporting production
Johannesburg is the "continental capital" for media production as well as the training centre for the creative and cultural industries.

The City aims to "help uncover and nurture creative talent", and assist in developing creative industry endeavours. This will be done by means of an agency that will offer advice, space and start-up loans. The City plans to help establish 100 new start-up spaces, primarily in the east end of the CBD.

Heritage
Johannesburg has been under pressure to accommodate both the development and heritage lobbies in the revamping of the CBD. This has often led to disagreements, resulting in delays in taking decisions.

The City plans to establish new protocols and principles governing re-development of the inner city with key heritage agencies. "This will balance the interests of large scale development in the inner city and the need to preserve precious heritage, inter alia by clarifying how heritage decisions can be speeded up."

In closing the summit, the City manager, Mavela Dlamini, said, "We want an inclusive city - not a city for some, but a city for all."

He encouraged people to submit more suggestions and ideas, via e-mail, to Graeme Gotz at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or Neil Fraser at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . "Come and interact with our officials," he said. The final charter is expected in July this year.

"Once we have got the inner city right, we will get every other square inch of the city right."