 Good evening and welcome to episode 311 of the Private Property Podcast. I'm your host, Usama Ndouma. If you're just joining us for the first time, welcome to the early daily property podcast in South Africa. Make sure that you go to our Facebook or our YouTube page to catch up on all the great content that you have already missed out on. And all our regular views on Facebook, on Instagram, as well as on YouTube, you know how we do it every single weekday. You and I have an appointment at 7pm. We always tackle a hot property topic and certainly have an in conversation with experts who help us make better property decisions. And of course, there's also a whole host of other shows that you can catch on private property every single weekday at 8pm. And I know that those of you are watching us would have seen some of the great changes that we're making, you know, behind the scenes that you're already able to see. We absolutely love, you know, changing things and innovating as much as we can. And of course, making the offering as much as better as we absolutely can. So we look forward to, you know, seeing more of you engaging with us across our social media platforms. Talking about some of the great shows that you look forward to at 8pm. As it is a Tuesday, you can be forming podcasts with Umba Linwoko at 8pm this evening. She's going to be looking at rural farming and sustainable beekeeping. And she's going to be in conversation with Umabata Portia Mouroudi, the co-founder at the village market. So if you want to get a bit of sense of how to certainly get into bee farming and making it as sustainable as possible, then that is a sure that you do not want to miss out on. You can catch them by every Thursdays as well at 8pm with the farming podcast. Every Mondays and Fridays, Chad takes us through the home shopper show. He gives us a great tour of amazing properties that you can find on www.privateproperty.co.za. So we make sure that you certainly make that appointment for every single Monday and Friday at 8pm. And on Wednesdays, Estie Klassen brings you the first time homebuy show, which is always in conversation with people who have not only walked that first time homebuying journey, but have gone on to grow their property portfolios from strength to strength. But those are the great shows that you can look forward to every single weekday at 8pm across private properties, social media pages. Remember to follow us across our social media pages on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube, as well as on TikTok. You can follow myself as I'm doing an underscore on Facebook and Instagram, as well as on Twitter. And of course, the conversation that I'm very excited about this evening. And as I said yesterday during Women's Month, we're only going to be having women as our guests. We're not going to be doing, you know, we're celebrating women and women are so amazing. Yes, we absolutely are amazing. But on the spotlight, we're going to, you know, have incredible experts who are women who are going to be helping us make better property decisions. And this evening, we're looking at women's participation in urban development. This is one of those topics that, you know, the nerd in me absolutely loves. I was already having the pre-show with my guests this evening. And just talking a little bit about, you know, urban development and how gendered it sometimes is. So if you want to get a bit of sense of, you know, the role that gender tends to typically play when it comes to urban development, this is a show that you want to make sure you do not miss out. And you're probably thinking, what is urban development? What do we even mean by it? And how should, why should I even, you know, care about what it is? Well, we're going to be tackling just that in a moment. And my guest this evening is somebody we've had in the show before, Claire Dutrovogos, an architect and an urban researcher. Claire, good evening, and thank you so much for joining us. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I am really, really excited to be here and to have this conversation with you and with the listeners tonight. It's only such a pleasure, Claire. And I think before I even get, you know, talking about urban development, which is really one of my, one of those topics that I geek out over all the time. I want to see this first look at, you know, the previous time you were with us, it was last year in November, we were looking at opportunities in the micro property development space. And that was, of course, with the work that you do with Bitprop. I think this is just at a high level for viewers who probably missed out on that episode that we have. Can you just tell us a little bit about Bitprop and some of the, certainly some of the work with opportunities that people potentially might have in that micro property development? So Bitprop was born out of an understanding that RDP or the B&G government subsidized houses were given or are given as starter homes. And so initially there was a bit more space and the idea that those homes would grow. But obviously with a lack of capital, it's very hard to grow those spaces. And Bitprop saw an opportunity in the growing rental market and the gap in the fact that there are very little or few innovative financial mechanisms or tools available for homeowners. So essentially what Bitprop does is Bitprop partners with a homeowner who owns property and ideally lives on that property and has space for rental developments. Then we come in, we design, we develop, we manage the construction process of four or six rental units on your property. And then we assist the homeowner in renting those units out. And that rental income is partially used to pay back Bitprop's capital over time. And it's partially used as an income for the homeowner. And after about eight to ten years, depending on the size of the property, depending on the vacancy rates and the rental return that we can get, the initial capital injection is paid back to Bitprop. And that becomes a long-term income generator, a sustainable passive income generator for the homeowner. And what's really exciting about it is that we're looking at, we've been in operation for almost three years now, and we're really looking at how we diversify that model. So not just looking at residential, but looking at mixed-use developments. You know, what does it mean? It's one thing just to put a bunch of more residential spaces in an area, but how do we start to include spaces for daycares and spaces for little corner cafes, little laundry? And I think as our conversation progresses, we'll talk more about why those types of spaces are so important in a mix of a neighborhood. And I absolutely love that. I think when we had you on the show last year, one of the great things that I urge you viewers at home, we haven't seen that episode, it was episode 141. And we're looking at the opportunities in the micro-property development. It is one of those things that many of us, especially within the township space, if you know that you've got a property, you want to find different ways of maximizing the space that you have and build really quality units in your particular property and use a different vehicle. And when I say different, I mean, different from sort of conventional banks or perhaps borrowing from friends and families, that will also compromise your operation, that possibly is an avenue that you are able to explore. So that's episode 141 for those of you at home who want to listen back to that conversation. I see all the love that we're getting on Facebook and the Sri Lankan Gangnam is saying happy Tuesday, property models. We choose private property, Begelli, Begelli, Begelli, Tamsin, Souvenile, also showing us some love there with those green hearts down here below. Absolutely love seeing that. Do continue showing us that love down here below. It's Tuesday. And thank you very much for choosing us this evening. Now, Claire, we did say we're obviously going to be looking at women's participation in urban development. Before we even look at the first component, which is women's participation, let's break down what we mean by urban development, because there are so many different ways that people can interpret urban development for purposes of a conversation. What is typically meant when we talk about urban development? So I think it is it is such a broad kind of topic. When I like to talk about urban development, I like to sort of think about the three bubbles, really, which are the policy like the urban policy bubble, the the urban economy bubble, and then the residential bubble. And the residential bubble, I don't just mean that great, but I let's call it the built environment bubble. So often when people say like, oh, urban development, we just immediately think of like, buildings. But these other two bubbles, our policy bubble, and our urban economy bubble are just as important. And often they they inform how the built environment lands up, kind of taking its shape. And so when we talk about urban development, we talk about the kind of like the sweet spot, the overlap of those three, where those come together, where we see the policy influencing the like economy, which obviously influences the physical manifestation, which is buildings, houses, office spaces, public spaces, roads. And I think that's, you know, it's when we talk about urban, it's also so broad. So we're not just talking about buildings, we're talking about infrastructure, water, electricity, infrastructure, sewage infrastructure, and then the top layer of actual buildings, and then everything else that kind of fits in into those buildings. And I want to bring in the gender component, because somebody is thinking, so why, why even look at gender, how does gender sort of intersect with, you know, urban, urban spaces, or talk about urban development or urban spaces and gender, how do those two intersect? I mean, we're talking offline that this is one of those things that I like following up on, particularly on, you know, I'll say global levels, so not just from a South African context, but looking at it, especially from the global South, how we are looking at gender and urban development and various topics sort of within the built environment. So when we look at gender and urban development or urban spaces, how do the two then come together, especially given how you've just, you know, put painted such a great picture of those three bubbles of, you know, urban policy, urban economy, and also of course the built environment. So when we then put in a gender component, how does that fundamentally come into play? Well, I think the obvious one that like immediate new jumps to mind, and that is very much kind of well spoken about and well covered is this idea of public safety and creating spaces that are safe for women and safe for children, because obviously when we when we think about women in sort of children, automatically get added on to that. But that's, you know, and then we're like, okay, great safety over the lighting, not far distances to travel, you know, but there's so many more very intricate details when we think about urban development that you don't think about but that that have such a big impact. So one of the things that is incredible for me, when you think about it is that on average, a woman will do 30 hours a week of unpaid labor, and that comes in the form of childcare, housework, caring for all people. And a man will do six to 10 hours less than a woman of unpaid labor. And so small things within the urban development space, and that goes back to what I was talking about earlier about, you know, how do we create good neighborhoods, is that if you have access, wider access to childcare facilities, so whether it's an ECD or a preschool, or even just like a daycare mother, you increase the ability of women to go back to work. And if women are able to work closer to they live to where they live, you also are able to increase how how many women access work because they're able to get back in a reasonable amount of time to fetch a child or to prepare dinner or to do homework with the child. And so all of these small details about like how many schools we put in an area when we're talking about like the policy level, you know, and then if we if we talk about the economy level, you know, are we injecting money into, you know, are we giving more subsidies to allow for more daycare centers and ECDs in in areas where we know mothers have to travel far to get to work. And so really, when we think about gender, it's a big overlap between how do we design spaces that are that are safe? But how do we design spaces that allow for the economic activities that then allow mothers to go back or women and participate in that economic realm as well. And then, you know, on a very personal, like closer to home level. In Cape Town Townships, the minimum requirement of like, or informal settlements rather, of toilets to households is five toilets to one household. And if we just increase that to three toilets to one household, we would dramatically we would incrementally reduce the amount of sexual harassment and sexual offenses that are done to women in those spaces, because they're having to walk two toilets at nighttime. And then that has a positive impact, because less sexual offenses means less public health bills, which means that money can be spent on other public health campaigns rather than on treating women who have been sexually abused. I'm this evening in conversation with Clare de Travaux, who's an architect and an urban researcher with a women's participation in urban development to think this is one of those things that we tend to not think about who it becomes an afterthought, certainly in a lot of our mainstream conversations. And I was just found out from you at home, I think if you especially for women, then what have been some of the considerations that you know you've had to make extra when you're even looking for a place, whether a place to buy or a place to rent in. And I mean, I'll go first. I think one of the big things that a lot of us, and I know all of us generally have to look at this, but I think women in particular will look at it even more, especially if you're going to be living alone is your more hyper vigilant on the safety of where you want to move in. And little things like if complex is close to a corner that looks slightly dodgy, and you know that you typically would come back from work very late, I would think twice about moving sort of there because I know that I may not be comfortable if the only way back to my place is sort of passing by that particular dodgy corner. And I think more often than not, as women, we sometimes do find ourselves having to work extra hard to put in safety measures. So if you're somebody who like struggling, you're going to find out if the area that you want to live in is safe for you to jog and as much as a lot of areas in South Africa, even where we think we're safe and not particularly safe, we often do, you know, try to get a sense of is that neighbourhood relatively safe, because high priority value for you is being able to jog, regardless of whether you're looking to buy that property or looking to rent there. So those are some of the factors that we sometimes have to look into as women when we are shopping for a property as either renters or of course home owners. I want to find out from you, what are the extra checks that you've had to put in place? And you know that chances are your male counterparts haven't done it. One of the things that used to irk me quite a lot was every time I view a property, I used to find far too often the estate agent asking me if you know Mr Komalo is going to be joining us. So that automatic assumption that you know I'm married and there's a man who's going to be there to make this decision, especially as I'm talking with them about the price and you know what's included or not included and they almost feel uneasy you know and assume that there's going to be a man part of the particular property transaction. So I really urge estate agents to not make those kinds of assumptions because they irk a lot of us women off. I think assume if you're dealing with the woman, you're dealing with the woman who is going to be buying by themselves. If you find out that there's a mister in the picture at a later stage, fantastic, but don't at the starting point make those kinds of assumptions. I want to find out from you at home as women, if you've had that encounter, I think a lot of us unfortunately have had far too many of those encounters at home. I see Abdullah Albertine sending those green hearts also and Facebook Mother Shanang is saying equity right there and that's of course looking at some of the policy type decisions that would need to be made that take women's safety in consideration. Now clear one of the things that I know doesn't get not only spoken about but addressed a lot within mainstream media is the role of affordable housing in urban development. I mean when we look at we'll say the housing crisis in South Africa in its entirety because I mean these those of us at home and people who watch the show are looking to buy or rent or build certainly looking at their property portfolio as much as possible and the reality of some of the landlords is that they cater to different you know demographics of people so and various LSMs and you know that the the needs that they have you know very slightly in terms of the amenities that you'd want to make sure are included in that kind of property. So when you then look at affordable housing and urban development perhaps you know helping the picture for us when it comes to women and affordable housing and urban development because we already know that we're such huge players in the first-time home buyers market as unmarried women for example. I'm keen to hear what what the stats would look like then in the affordable market space and how we need to be catering more to that demographic because it's got such a lot of potential that we are unfortunately not adequately tapping into. Yeah I mean I think one of the things that has happened in the last I want to say month but the last three weeks so I'm currently at home in KZN with my parents I got stuck here my flights got cancelled because of COVID and then my flights got cancelled because of the right well I couldn't get to the airport because of the right so these last three weeks feel like a year so in that space there has been a quite a landmark decision in Sea Point to purchase a piece of the Western Cape's purchase a piece of land from the SABC and they'll be developing affordable housing on that land and why it's so incredibly important is because it goes back to what I was saying earlier the fact that there are so many jobs that serve the residents of Sea Point that women play you know cashiers at checkers, tellers at banks not that we really have those anymore domestic workers, child carers you know nannies and those women then have to now travel you know two and a half to four or five hours back out of Sea Point every day and by allowing a good mix of affordable housing in our spaces we allow for those women to then play the role in a in a full not exhausted way in their own homes and it also means that there's we're working towards obviously more integrated cities and diverse spaces where we know that the more diverse the space is the safer it becomes and it really kind of just pushes that urban development into into spaces that are like livable really livable integrated neighborhoods and so when we talk about affordable housing we need to we need to also recognize that we need more going back to my bubbles we need more policy instruments and the city of Cape Town is and the city of Joberg in many ways are working the city of Joberg is a little bit ahead on affordable housing policies that will allow for you know a good mix of of affordable units to come into into the spaces but it's so incredibly important to recognize that the people who work in our cities need to be able to live in our cities and I think we're seeing that across all of the neighborhoods it's not necessarily just in the inner city you know if we think about Century City and access to affordable housing around that node in in Joberg it's sent and and now like we're seeing with all the taxi violence in Cape Town when there's a break in the public transport we see a breakdown in those value chains and so affordable housing would completely negate that we would still have public transport and for other services but we wouldn't a lot of our value chains and our services within cities wouldn't rely so heavily on the public transport system I'm this evening in conversation with Clare de Trevaux looking at women's participation in urban development I want to find out from our viewers who are women around the the key things that they look at or look at when they're looking for a property whether it is to buy or to rent out and I think one of the key things I was saying earlier is that safety is one of those big ones that that I look out for and regardless of whether I'm looking to buy an investment property and where obviously you don't know which gender you're going to be bringing up to but safety certainly is one of those big things that I'm always aware of I want to find out more of your questions and comments when it comes to this especially our viewers who are women and I see on Facebook we've got O'Fourney more housing is safety I make sure I buy a house in an enclosed area not really a complex and also a house that is in between other houses not at the corner or near the busy road and that's a huge consideration because it's so easy for people to do something especially when you're in a busy road to do something and gets missed you would think because it's a busy road people would know but people are not really looking out for that and we've got two times in Subangila saying I experienced just that twice I bought my first property at 20 and way back in 1996 and the assumption that Ubaaba is coming to sign and I know so many of us as women probably have this encounter you go and view a property doesn't even matter what the price point of that property is and the estate agent automatically assumes that there's a man in the picture who's either going to come for a second viewing or that you're going to need to apply with to qualify and I think one of the dangerous things that estate agents do is just that because the reality is we're seeing a lot of women a lot of unmarried women who are choosing to enter the property market whether it is to be home owners themselves or to the property investors so making that kind of assumption is actually quite dangerous and somebody can be easily put off and rather work with another estate agent in that property transaction. Claire before I let you go and throw your wrap up this evening I think you know what what can we do better to you know better or accommodate I'll say women in particular when it comes to our urban development because I think one of the key things that you've already just so well pointed out is the knock on effect of sort of getting the fundamentals right and that really ultimately everybody has to gain right so what can we do better and by we are really mean for example I'm thinking of fears at home who are some of them property investors and obviously rent out to women so from the prism of somebody who owns a property and would rent out sometimes you're probably you know renting out to a woman who's a single mother or you know a single woman who's looking for a property how can they sort of make better decisions or better position themselves being mindful of we'll say the greater factors that are in play. I think one of the big things to kind of think about like if we think about like a property developer if you're a property developer and you are starting a project and you I would get a team almost like a like a reference group and get a team of women to red hat your idea first and little things like you know from how you enter you know how long does your gate take to open if it's an automatic gate is if it's a pedestrian gate like is it like a block that you can't see through because all of those small safety like thoughts before you even enter the property are things that women are taking into consideration can I get my pram off the edge of this pavement where's the nearest park because you know maybe it's safer to exercise in a park because there's a lot more that kind of thing so really having a reference group and idea and then you know coming like if you're if you now are a property owner and you want to you're getting a place to the for rental purposes really consider small things like how high is your are your cabinets and a lot of the times like you know women can't even reach and it's it's silly things and then if you do have really high cabinets then you know be considerate and put a little footstool there for your tenant you know maybe making things emergency numbers available and then from like a bigger scale I think just really thinking about what can you do as a property owner that impact on your neighborhood or even as a tenant so how how can you actively participate in making neighborhoods safer and more accessible for women and maybe it means speaking to a rate pays association about lighting or engaging with the SID about having extra patrols and really kind of thinking about about the spaces beyond your property because those are the spaces that often get forgotten and if we were each to kind of like publicly monitor and be accountable for like a one kilometer radius around our property our cities would be a lot more safe like a lot more safer and accessible for women as a whole I'm going to end this off with a comment from Utansin so and this is a kid of worms because I remember once raising it with an attorney I dealt with and and they explained it quite well but the convention still works me quite a bit and and Tamsin says I'm currently an estate agent and I'm a state agent currently and happened to pick up this close on an offer to purchase referring to a he withholding of capital gains tax non-resident sellers the seller declares that he is or is not a non-resident and and then it continues and I think the the big way that a lot of our contracts tend to you know be being written some of them of course making reference to a he even though really it's a he or she what you would typically find that is you know at the beginning of the contract when they sort of do the breakdown they'll say that way he or she is used one you know holds regardless of the person's gender and then you'll find that the rest of the you know the contract it's it's a he that's used and a part of me is like let's this rather than use the she right let's change the convention and see if men are going to be comfortable signing a document that then makes it a she even though we all know that that isn't necessarily who it's being referred to we're going to squeeze this one and it's coming from the same kind of property if I wouldn't if I wouldn't stay in it I won't buy even if it's a buy to rent so safety and conveniently located plays a big basic role and that's quite a big one right so if you're not going to want to stay in it perhaps don't buy it and you're able to then look at all those things like this doesn't also meet my personal safety standards if not why expect somebody else to live in it but we're going to leave it there this evening clear I think this has been such an insightful conversation I know that I was nerding up before we came on air thank you so much for joining us always such a pleasure to have you on the show thank you so much for having me and thank you to and that was clear to Travaux who is the thank you very much Claire and she is an architect and an urban researcher wrapping up the Tuesday edition of the private property podcast with myself if you look forward to the farming podcast with them by leaving all quite 8 p.m looking at the sustainability of be farming I'll be back on your screens tomorrow evening at 7 p.m until then hoping you're staying home and staying safe