Sectional-title developments are very popular with first time buyers and in particular the 20 to 30-year-old demographic. And why not, they are relatively cheap, secure and most 20 to 30 years olds are either single or if they are in a relationship do not have any children yet, so space is not an issue.

Over the years we have designed many sectional title developments around the country and even into Africa. Although they are marketed as great first time buys and advertised as secure home options, more so than a house in the suburbs, the one thing they all have in common is that they are built to make as much profit for the developer as possible. This is after all what developers do and there is nothing wrong with that as long the product, they create is worth the money paid for it which then can justify the profits made by the developer.

During the building-boom between 2001-2007 sectional-title developments popped up quicker than popcorn in a cinema lobby and were snatched up by first-time homeowners and investors quicker than they could be reproduced. Since 2008 when the market crashed all plans to continue with sectional-title developments were shelved and only now, 5 years later, are we being approached by developers to design new townhouses and simplexes. This is great news for the economy and with this new confidence in the market and considering that most of the “cowboy” developers were burned when they market crashed, we hope that only the proper ones remain. By “proper” I mean the developers that would rather sacrifice some profits for quality and good design knowing that investors will return again and again thereby not only developing real estate but developing relationships and good business practices too.

This brings me to the point of the article: Where are all the duplexes? As Architects we always try and persuade developers to build duplexes rather than townhouses. Townhouses are residences where one owner lives on the ground floor and another owner lives on the first floor. If you have ever lived like this, you will know that one’s privacy is seriously compromised however this issue can be addressed by making the owners of the ground floor and first floor the same person. In other words, use the ground floor for the living areas and the first floor for the bedrooms so the unit becomes a double storey unit. This not only improves privacy issues but also gives the unit a garden space, an attachment to the NGL (natural ground level) which we feel is essential to the quality of one’s existence. This ability to leave the confines of the walls that surround you and go out into the open, the garden.

Yet, even with all these positives, we still find it difficult to sell this idea even to the “proper” developers. Why? you may ask….. Well the answer is simple. Profits. You see with duplexes you must give each unit a staircase where in a townhouse arrangement you can have one staircase to every four units. In essence you need four times the number of staircases and unfortunately these items are expensive to build and therefore are not worth the sacrifice in potential profits.

Well, with the new confidence in the market and what seems to be an improvement in the building industry, we are making it our mission to encourage developers to go the duplex route and we believe we can sell this idea for two reasons.

  1. We believe the market has matured now where units can be sold for slightly higher prices and therefore the costs of the staircases can be offset by the higher prices and
  2. We believe we can reduce the number of staircases to half with a simple trick, one we will keep to ourselves for now.

So watch this space to see how we progress with this and if we are successful or if we simply cave to the developers whims as so many of us do for our bread and butter.