Mount Edgecombe Interchange Supervisory Surveyor





Services used:
- Construction surveying
- Engineering surveying
Client: SMEC
Dates: 2014 - 2018
SANRAL, together with the KZN Department of Transport, upgraded the existing N2/M41 Mount Edgecombe interchange north of Durban. The R816 million project consisted of a large incrementally-launched bridge that was constructed as a flyover for traffic from the M42 west to the N2 southbound. The bridge is 26m high and 947m long, which makes it the longest incrementally launched bridge in South Africa. In addition to these two large bridges, numerous other structures and road works have been constructed.
GeoAfrika Surveys were appointed by SMEC South Africa to provide consulting survey services during the construction period and had a consulting surveyor permanently on-site during construction.
Scope:
- Pre- and post-construction concrete survey checks.
- Verification of quantities on the Contractor’s Certificate.
- Layer works checking.
- Earthworks setting out.
- Structural monitoring of incrementally launched bridges.
Services used:
- Construction surveying
- Engineering surveying
Land Tenure and Housing Development in Edendale
Services used:
- Land legal audits
- Conveyancing
- GIS
- Valuation
- Land surveying
Client: Msunduzi Municipality
Dates: 2003 - present
Edendale is a large and populous area situated to the north west of Pietermaritzburg, established as a segregated township by the apartheid government. Several thousand residential even were surveyed, starting in the early 1960s, although previous forms of land tenure have existed since the late 1800s. Due to poor control mechanisms and the chaotic nature of the apartheid government’s Deeds Registry and cadastral system, several forms of overlapping title have been granted over the course of the development, leading to multiple issues in administration and management of the land in the present day. GeoAfrika Surveys was tasked with developing a strategic response to this, clarifying land ownership and establishing systems to consolidate information going forward.
Scope:
- Identifying duplicate titles (whether in the form of PTOs, Deeds of Grant or freehold title).
- Unravelling old titles and upgrading tenure to freehold title in terms of the Upgrading of Land Tenure Rights Act 112 of 1991.
- Identifying private or state land parcels that could be purchased or transferred to extend the development of the Greater Edendale Area.
- Training and appointing Edendale-based facilitators, primarily in the support of the private land acquisition initiative.
- Establishing a comprehensive Geographic Information System (GIS) and other integrated web-based systems in support of the above, and the provision of accurate financial, legal and administrative information as required by the Auditor General.
Services used:
- Land legal audits
- Conveyancing
- GIS
- Valuation
- Land surveying
Daimler Laser Scan To Bim
Services used:
- Laser scanning
- Engineering surveying
- BIM
- CAD
Client: Daimler
Dates: 2017 - present
Daimler (Mercedes-Benz) South Africa are currently undertaking significant extensions and upgrades to their plant in East London. A number of the assembly and workshop warehouses are being extended during this programme, some of which date back to as far as the 1950s and contain wooden elements in the structural design. Over the years, there have been numerous upgrades and installations within the warehouses, some documented on CAD drawings and some undocumented. Daimler required a 3D BIM (Building Information Model) for two of their warehouses (totalling 75,000sqm) detailing all the major architectural, structural and MEP components of the buildings.
Scope:
- Conducting high-resolution laser scans of the warehouses during assembly shutdown.
- Registering laser scan data to the current site drawing system.
- Extracting features into REVIT models and libraries, including architectural, structural, mezzanine, MEP and HVAC elements.
- Converting REVIT models in IFC format for client use.
Services used:
- Laser scanning
- Engineering surveying
- BIM
- CAD
Royal Palm Estate
Services used:
- Land audits
- Conveyancing
- Land surveying
- Sectional title
- GIS
- Topographical surveying
- Engineering surveying
Client: Royal Palm Estate
Dates: 2005 - present
Palm Lakes is a premium lifestyle development situated on the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal. The estate comprises of residential, intermediate residential, commercial, mixed use, hotel and education sites, as well as various community facilities. It houses numerous sectional title developments, and has been well received by local and national buyers.
Scope:
- Land assembly and planning: preparing land audits, compiling development application in terms of the Development Facilitation Act, and consolidating various portions of old sugarcane farms.
- Topographical surveying of land for the design of engineering services, laying out of land parcels, and grading and pricing sites based on selected criteria.
- Setting out of roads, bulk services and development footprints.
- Beaconing of site boundaries and submission of general plans to Surveyor-General’s Office.
- Sectional title surveys.
- Various ad hoc town planning applications so as to change the development rights in keeping with the demands of the region.
Services used:
- Land audits
- Conveyancing
- Land surveying
- Sectional title
- GIS
- Topographical surveying
- Engineering surveying
SANRAL Land Survey Management
Services used:
- Laser scanning
- Engineering surveying
- Project management
- CAD
- Land surveying
- Land-legal services
- Facilities management
- Financial management
- GIS
Client: SANRAL
Dates: 2015 - present
The South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) network comprises of nearly 22,691km of road infrastructure. This equates to an estimated 500 million hectares of land that requires administration, management and survey.
Scope:
- Land administration and audits.
- Legal consulting work.
- Preparation of cadastral key plans based on declarations, existing cadastral parcels and future expansion of the road network.
- Framing of acquisition diagrams.
- Land surveying of new subdivisions and lease diagrams.
- Engineering and topographical surveys for new construction projects.
- Facilities management of SANRAL buildings and office parks.
- Ad hoc consulting on specialised survey and legal issues.
- Procurement management and quality control for surveys and other tenders issued by SANRAL.
Services used:
- Laser scanning
- Engineering surveying
- Project management
- CAD
- Land surveying
- Land-legal services
- Facilities management
- Financial management
- GIS
Property Registration Reform: Ilembe District Municipality
Services used:
- Land-legal
- Project management
- Conveyancing
- Town planning
- Land surveying
Read the media coverage of this project here.
Client: The World Bank
Dates: November 2019
The provision of good quality housing and living conditions is a government priority for all citizens of South Africa. A significant proportion of those who do own homes in the country, however, do not hold title deeds. This can be attributed to a number of factors, including the complexity of systems, poor beneficiary data-keeping, housing developments that do not comply with local planning regulations, and appointment of incapable service providers. Additionally, low-income individuals often do not follow the formal registration process at all because of the expense involved and the fact that many dwellings have been informally “subdivided” or extended over time, which would invalidate the registration.
As a result of these issues, a large number of government housing developments constructed since 1994 operate and trade on an informal basis. It is in this context that in November 2018 the World Bank appointed GeoAfrika to undertake a project with the following mandate:
- To establish a simpler and more affordable system for registering transactions for low-income areas.
- To undertake a mass systematic registration program in order to issue the first deeds to owners in two pilot project regions of Ilembe.
Scope:
•Conceptualising and establishing a simpler and more affordable system for registering transactions for low-income areas.
•Establishing a facility with expertise to help register or record transactions and inheritance.
•Appointing advisory teams of professionals to undertake the registration in accordance with the proposed system.
•Collating the lessons learnt from the project into a policy and regulations amendment proposal.
•Creating a public awareness and training programme on the new proposed policies and workflow for registrations.
Services used:
- Land-legal
- Project management
- Conveyancing
- Town planning
- Land surveying
Read the media coverage of this project here.
UKZN Land Assembly Rationalisation
Services used:
- Town planning
- Topographical surveys
- Cadastral surveys
- Land audit
- Conveyancing
Client: University of KwaZulu-Natal
Dates:
Established tertiary educational institutions often occupy large tracts of land due to the number of facilities they encompass. The growth in their physical footprint is often fairly ad hoc, however, responding more to new demands on resources than a long-term strategic plan. As a result, land is sometimes acquired or re-allocated for these institutions that was previously planned for other land usage. The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) operates five campuses across the province of KwaZulu-Natal, and its growth over the years has resulted in an over-large property holding, made up of a number of small pieces of land. This has led to significant cost inefficiencies from a property rating and property sub-leasing perspective. To help remedy this, GeoAfrika was appointed as a subcontractor to the property valuation team to undertake the rationalisation of the UKZN land assembly across all five campuses.
Scope:
- Undertaking a Land Audit of the land holdings owned or occupied by UKZN on all five campuses.
- Identifying the future needs of the University from a growth and operational perspective.
- Preparing a town planning application with a revised consolidation and subdivision of property holdings into efficient locations and extents.
- Undertaking the land surveying of the properties and submission of diagrams to the Surveyor General’s office.
- Undertaking the registration of new Deeds of Title for the more efficient land assembly.
Services used:
- Town planning
- Topographical surveys
- Cadastral surveys
- Land audit
- Conveyancing
Underground Service Detection Surveys: N3 Upgrade
Services used:
- Service detection radar
- Topographical surveys
- Engineering surveys
Client: SANRAL
Dates: June 2019
The construction of improved road and highway infrastructure is a complex task. Civil engineering designers need as much information as possible to ensure that they plan new infrastructure that meets the specifications required by the client, while also providing detailed information to the contractor so upgrades can be completed within budget and on time.
The N3 highway from Durban to Pietermaritzburg is currently undergoing significant design upgrades in preparation for construction starting in 2020. While the highway corridor has been extensively surveyed over the last five years, there have also been numerous new services laid underground across and within the road reserve. GeoAfrika Surveys have undertaken a detailed audit of these underground services to ensure that an up to date record of their locations is provided to contractors prior to construction. This will reduce the risk of services being impeded during construction, preventing significant knock on effects to the project budget and timeframes.
Scope:
- Identifying above ground service locations from existing documentation provided by previous ground surveys and as-built information submitted by contractors.
- Tracing position and depth of these services from terminal points.
- Checking for undetected services within the road reserve.
- Surveying the locations and depths of all services for mapping and stake out within the field
Download the project profile: GeoAfrika Surveys - Service Detection
Services used:
- Service detection radar
- Topographical surveys
- Engineering surveys