Fayeda Ebrahim – who has been part of the Cornubia housing project since 2010 – discussed the theory and guiding principles behind the making of the Cornubia Integrated Human Settlement during the University’s Urban Futures Centre Seminar on Thursday (21 August 2014) last week.

Ebrahim started her career with government housing in 1997 with the then Provincial Department of Housing and has been involved in project monitoring, management and co-ordination since. She has been consulting to the eThekwini Municipality since 2001 and became involved with the Cornubia Project in 2010 and has been part of a very dedicated and committed team.

Cornubia is a mixed race and mixed income joint venture development between the National Department of Human Settlements, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Human Settlements, eThekwini Municipality as well as Tongaat Hullet Development and is set to be eThekwini’s largest sustainable integrated human settlement initiative.

The housing project is a benchmark project situated on the hillsides of the Mt Edgecobe, Phoenix, Ottawa and Waterloo areas. It is easily accessible from the N2, R102 and M41 freeways and is a stone-throw away from Umhlanga and the popular Gateway Theatre of Shopping mall.

The development is divided into two separate entities, namely: Phase 1 and Phase 2 which cater for a range of income groups. The total expected investment value on building and infrastructure development is expected to exceed R25 billion.

“In terms of social facilities, the plan is to cluster social facilities; for instance libraries and swimming pools to maximize land use. There’s also shared home fields so that school children use the fields for a variety of activities”, said Ebrahim.

According to Ebrahim, the entire development is likely to create approximately 48 000 new sustainable jobs and 15 000 job opportunities over a15-25 year period. “The project’s close proximately to the new King Shaka International Airport increases employment opportunities for the project beneficiaries,” she said.

The settlement has received a lot of publicity since implementation in 2010, and has since won the prestigious 2014 Provincial and National Govan Mbeki award for best priority project under the category ‘Best Metropolitan Municipality’.

-Talent Buthelezi

Pictured: DUT’s Prof Monique Marks (left) and Fadeya Ebrahim (right) at the UFC seminar last week (21 August 2014) at the Steve Biko Campus.