The NDP’s intentions are to use public funding to leverage private sector investment. If the constitutional mandate of the municipality is to be developmental and pro-poor, it must take a strong lead and make the objectives clear upfront to the private sector who will ultimately be benefitting in the long term indirectly by a broadening market.

In a fickle economy Local Municipalities will have to play an even stronger and more proactive role as the private sector will be more resistant to investing in areas perceived to be more risky and will want to set more stringent conditions. Here in lies the biggest challenge.

To ensure that one does not allow a business as usual development scenario to play itself out with little consideration of what is required to create a more urban and qualitative environment, the Municipality will need to be very clear in their strategy and method of engagement about the expectations of the State who should act in the interest of the broader public.

For this reason the toolkit puts forward a number of principles that the phasing plan should be informed by. They are as follows:

• The phasing plan must demonstrate commitment to the private sector that the public sector is on board
• The phasing Plan must fix non-negotiable elements through construction of new or upgrade of existing PT facilities and access routes.
• The phasing Plan must focus on connecting the Hub to the metro network AND local access network simultaneously as far as possible to ensure integration of the new development. In other words where rail stations are upgraded, NMT linkages between the stations and the local areas should be implemented simultaneously.
• The phasing Plan must ensure all NMT routes are framed by development from the start. The edges can be phased themselves if they are conceptualised as colonnades that get filled in over time.
• The first phases of development should always attempt to create a ‘complete system,’ i.e. a network that connects key generators of movement and destinations.