Newtown Improvement District board begins plans to revive the inner city

The Newtown Improvement District (NID) has begun its journey to revive and restore the inner city under the leadership of a new board. The new board under the chairmanship of Dr More Chakane and guidance of Public Officer, Nicolaas Erasmus, has welcomed the revitalisation of the Newtown precinct with a number of promising projects.

One of these projects is the Urban Design Architecture Exhibition which was launched on June 19 at The Mills in Newtown. The exhibition showcased ideas submitted by students from South African Institutions. These architectural ideas were designed to aid the invigoration process ignited by the newly appointed committee.

The new committee includes Dr More Chakane (Chairman),  Lehlohondlo Litelu (Vice Chair), Nicolaas Erasmus (Public Officer), Angelina Booi, Ray Harli, Thabasile Hlaneke, Boyce Maritz, Lusapho Mgweba, Nicolas Sack, Llewellyn Rwaxa, Heloise Van Niekerk, and Nadia Virasamy.

 “Newtown has of course been one of the major focuses for inner-city revitalization over the past few years. Following years of waffle, it finally has been driven by the vision for the area becoming the city’s and the country’s ‘creative capital’” (Fraser, 2004: No 41).

At the exhibition, NID Chairman Dr Chakane said, “The objective of NID is to address issues concerning the Newtown area which are fundamental to its well-being and to all the Newtown stakeholders.” He later added the importance of the youth being involved in the process and thanked all the stakeholders present who had made the exhibition possible.

 Furthermore, Dr Chakane used the platform to solidify the plans of the NID going forward.

• “Growing, empowering and creating opportunities for all stakeholders in Newtown

• Working in collaboration with a variety of Newtown stakeholders, both in the private and public sectors to develop a well-governed, clean, safe, vibrant, sustainable, productive and inclusive, Newtown

• Acting as a consultative forum that best endeavours to address Newtown’s stakeholder needs

• Aligning their development objectives and project implementation to relevant policy documents

• Identifying, establishing and supporting partnerships

• Capacitating, incubating establishing and supporting appropriate institutions and organisations

• Raising necessary funding

• Undertaking all matters ancillary to the above to achieve the object of the NID