Guides and resources for planners
The following provides a few resources (documents, guidelines and utilities that can assist planning in their duties. Note however that these items can only support planners and it has to be used in the relevant and suitable context.
GUIDELINES FOR HUMAN SETTLEMENT PLANNING AND DESIGN
This document provides performance-based guidelines for informed decision-making. The purpose is essentially to indicate the qualities that should be sought in South African settlements, and to provide practical guidance on how these qualities can be achieved. The document is therefore intended to be educative, providing ideas and useful information, and not as a substitute for innovative planning and engineering practice.
The Guidelines for Human Settlement Planning and Design, also known as the ‘Red Book’ is now available free of charge on the CSIR website.
SPACE PLANNER
The CSIR has developed the Space Planner, a free, web-based tool for calculating the social facility demand and associated land use requirements for a given development. It takes into consideration factors such as land availability, housing densities and family sizes. It can be used to calculate requirements for new developments or used post development to determine the variance of the de facto supply to the facility supply standards. It should be used only as an indication of possible land requirements to be supported by other specific planning activities.
This web site assists in the calculation of urban development area, taking into account open space, roads, dwelling density and facilities. Results require interpretation and should not be used without understanding the implications. The space planner can be accessed on the CSIR site.
