Drive through Buffalo City these days and something is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Steel frames. IBR sheets. Buildings seemingly going up almost as quickly as the businesses they are meant to house.
Perhaps they have always been there and I am only noticing them now.
But once you start looking, you start seeing them everywhere.
Workshops. Storage facilities. Commercial buildings. Structures taking shape in places where, not too long ago, the default would probably have been brick and mortar.
This is throughout both townships and suburban areas.
So what is going on? Is this simply a cheaper and faster way of building? Is it the flexibility of steel construction?
Or are property owners and entrepreneurs adapting to an environment where time has become almost as important as money?
I don’t know the answer yet.
But I think the question is worth asking.
The easy conclusion would be to say that people are turning to IBR structures because they are tired of waiting for building plans to be approved.
That would be too simplistic.
Changing the material does not mean changing the rules, and steel buildings are not automatically exempt from municipal building requirements.
But the fact that these structures can be erected relatively quickly does raise a bigger question about how we think about development in Buffalo City.
What happens when the person with a business idea does not have the luxury of waiting months or years for everything around that idea to fall into place?
A small manufacturer needs more than a good product. They need land. They need electricity. They need water. They need access. They need the right zoning.
They need approvals. And eventually, they need somewhere to put the machinery and actually get to work. Every delay has a cost.
If zoning meant hurdles were cleared
This is where I think the conversation about steel structures becomes more interesting.
Buffalo City owns land. The municipality has areas that are earmarked as having economic development potential.
Its draft Built Environment Performance Plan points to places such as North End, Wilsonia, Fort Jackson, Ntabozuko, Zwelitsha and Dimbaza as areas where better use of existing infrastructure could support economic development.
So why not think more deliberately about what happens on some of that land?
Not another industrial park that takes ten years to become an industrial park. Not another piece of municipal land sitting behind a fence while everyone waits for the “right” investor.
What if some municipal land was prepared specifically for smaller businesses and manufacturers?
Land that is appropriately zoned. Land where the basic infrastructure is already planned. Land divided into manageable sites that a small business can actually afford to use.
Then an entrepreneur does not have to begin with: “Where can I find land?” They can begin with: “What can I build here?”
That difference matters.
We often talk about service delivery in terms of water, electricity, roads and refuse collection.
Those are basic and essential responsibilities. But local government also has a role to play in creating the conditions in which people can earn a living.
A serviced piece of land can be a form of economic infrastructure. A faster, more predictable approval process can be economic infrastructure.
An industrial site close to the people who need jobs can be economic infrastructure.
Local people could save traveling costs which have drastically increased since Covid-19.
And perhaps this is where modular construction has a role to play.
If the land is ready, the services are ready and the regulatory process is clear, there is no reason why every small factory or workshop needs to take years to get off the ground.
Steel construction, IBR and other modular approaches could potentially shorten the time between breaking ground and opening the doors.
Can the state keep pace?
But there is an important caveat we may need to pay attention to.
Speed cannot come at the expense of safety, planning or proper municipal oversight.
A faster building process is only useful if the buildings are safe, properly approved and connected to infrastructure that can support them.
I am not suggesting that every IBR building going up in Buffalo City is evidence of a problem.
Maybe it is evidence of something much simpler: people have figured out that they need to build faster.
And if that is what is happening, perhaps government should pay attention.
Because sometimes the market tells us things before policy documents do. People will find cheaper ways to build. They will find faster ways to trade.
They will find unused spaces and turn them into businesses. They will adapt because they have to.
The question is whether local government can adapt with them.
Maybe the next conversation about municipal land should not only be about selling or leasing it.
Maybe we should be asking what productive activity that land could unlock.
And perhaps, when we see another steel frame going up along one of Buffalo City’s roads, the question should not simply be: “What are they building?”
It should be: “What could we be building if the government made things easier?”
Buzani is a business consultant and youth empowerment advocate, as well as a founding member of an award-winning SME and of the vibrant Mdantsane entrepreneur network Kasi Konversations
Daily Dispatch
