The Sunday News
Mugove Hamadziripi
THE question is: How do we keep our downtowns, once vibrant and full of life, from being burrowed?
The post Covid-19 pandemic era has witnessed most of our cities and towns on the brink of disaster, with some showing signs of recovery. Both are signs that our town and urban planners including developers have to toss around as they assess the post pandemic scenarios. Still, the same question pops up: ‘what will happen to our once vibrant towns in our cities as we know them today?’
A few months into the post pandemic period, some cities like Bulawayo and Harare are slowly bouncing back from the Covid19 predicament. However, as these towns and cities are being reborn, they are looking different than they were before the lockdowns and curfews were imposed for the greater part of last year. Downtowns remain a cog in this whole developmental puzzle.
There’s no reason to think that Covid-19 pandemic will bring down our cities and towns. History is on our side, most of cities will rebound from the disaster. History suggests most cities can rebound from disaster, as evidenced by London, Athens in Greece and Rome in Italy who weathered devastating plagues and wars.
However, rebirth won’t come on a silver plate. Smart decisions have to be taken by our City Fathers and the Government to avoid catastrophic scenarios. Our towns and cities futures are pivoted on smart decisions by powers that be as well as an open mindedness to different models of planning and operations.
A transect walk in Bulawayo, Gweru, Kwekwe or Mutare tells a different picture. Most towns and urban downtowns and business districts accommodate a handful of retail and office spaces, as well as restaurants and lodging facilities that are today lying idle or vacant.
It’s now a new normal. The towns and cities are at a standstill. People are no longer frequenting towns or cities as they used to be. People no longer want to lodge a flat or apartment in towns or cities anymore. We call it a house of cards on many levels.
We are witnessing a coherent movement away from towns and cities. People are rethinking the amount of real estate they need if they’re staying home for everything, which pushes them out to cheaper areas which are mostly out of towns and cities.
This unexpected migration of people from town or cities has some ripple effects. Bulawayo has witnessed the closure of restaurants and bars, offices and lodgings, in the process wiping off jobs and revenue meant to develop the very city. At this juncture, longer-term office market projections should be made.
As of May 2021, most Zimbabweans are still working from home despite lifting of the lid on lockdowns and curfews. Most workers who are working remotely are still hoping to continue working virtually in the unforeseeable future.
Therefore, what will be the occupancy rates in office space scattered across our CBDs and even downtowns?
The post pandemic period has shown us that people can work from home and still deliver the same result. My guess would be we’ll have lower demand for office space in the future, but how much lower? Nobody knows.
The world over, according to JLL, a real estate services company direct commercial real estate investment is slowly falling. Developers, estate agents, municipalities may need to repurpose their commercial office spaces if that demand continues to drop, but opportunities could arise if costs of square footage see a dip as well.
However, there has to be a market to convert office buildings into residential spaces. Half a decade into the future (2025s), people will again want access to the amenities that cities and towns afford. Structurally, its not difficult to convert interior office spaces for alternative uses, but challenges may arise in dealing with the bureaucracy to get approval.
For the past decade, the high cost of city real estate has been forcing a plethora of changes to building usage in most of Zimbabwean cities and towns, and the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic has only accelerated that trend. Prior to the onset of the pandemic, we were seeing demand for multi-use space.
As such in times like this, municipalities need to rezone so that residential spaces now include office space, gyms, and restaurants, which will be a silver lining to balance the loss in the commercial sector. Most retail space in our urban downtowns will be hard to repurpose. retail space was overbuilt, as brick-and-mortar stores have struggled to stay afloat in the age of e-commerce which has been promoted by the advent of the virtual workspace.
The best way to reuse that space is to be more inclusive and to target new, smaller businesses. The other million-dollar question being: How can we utilise vacant restaurant space and prevent more loss in that sector (Hospitality)? Should our towns and cities permit changes that will allow eateries to spill out onto sidewalks and streets?
This is the immediate challenge here. From a design perspective, there’s work to be done to continue flexible use of outdoor space in our towns and cities starting today. The pandemic has served as an advent of ‘tactical urbanism.’
Cities have demonstrated they can go in with a light touch, instead of making a permanent change, and be effective.
We have a saying: “Cities don’t die of natural causes, nor are they murdered. They commit suicide.”
Mugove Emmanuel Hamadziripi writes about and consults on Development, Media, Urbanism, Communications, Ccommunity, Policy / Politics, Sustainability and the environment. He can be reached at [email protected].
