SA's obsession with 'Cities'

Johannesburg doesn't need another 'Mega City' project

- Ash Müller

Who remembers the proposed Modderfontein Mega City - the R84 billion “New York of Africa” that was supposed to rise on Johannesburg's East Rand?

Maybe you don’t. Because it never materialised.

In 2013, Shanghai Zendai, a Chinese developer, bought 1 600 hectares from the chemical company AECI for R1 billion.

The vision was to build a futuristic city that would rival Sandton with 55 000 homes, 10 malls, 10 hotels, a CBD, 1.4 million square metres of office space, schools, hospitals, a stadium and even a theme park. Construction began in 2015, with the development of 300 residential units and some infrastructure. Suddenly, activity on site went silent...

By 2017, the project had collapsed under the weight of funding shortfalls, rezoning disputes, and overambition.

I heard that the City of Johannesburg learnt about the project through the news, not through direct engagement from the developer. When the City of Johannesburg requested that the developer include 5000 affordable housing units in their luxurious Mega City development, the developer declined to rework the plans, and the City withdrew its support. Without the support of local authorities, it's easy to see why this project never took off.

M&T Group later took over the land and has since built small-scale housing, nothing close to the skyscraper skyline once promised.

Ironically, Zendai’s chairman was later arrested in China for illegal fundraising.

Maybe it’s a blessing the “New York of Africa” never got past the PowerPoint stage.