- Loan Successfully Funded On 30 Aug 2023 and Fully Repaid
Pioneering Sustainable Communities in Johannesburg
Linbro Gardens
- Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
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- 5,930 USD
Loan has been fully repaid
Linbro Gardens is raising the final capital needed for the planning and design phase of a ground-breaking mixed-income housing project in Johannesburg. The development focuses on inclusivity, sustainability, and community empowerment. Funds will be used for rezoning, town planning, initial design, engineering work, and installing bulk infrastructure. This project is a catalyst for social change and environmental conservation, and sets new benchmarks for housing delivery in South Africa.
- 5 Lenders
Committed
- 1 months
Loan Period
- 10%
Interest Rate
- BACKGROUND
Loan summary
The Loan provides the final capital needed for Linbro Gardens, a catalytic mixed income sustainable housing project in Johannesburg, South Africa. The project is being developed by Linbro Gardens Holdings, a special purpose vehicle established to develop the project. Linbro Gardens holdings is a partnership between Akoma, a local developer with a focus on sustainability, and Jocelene Mpofu Fouassier, the owner of the project site and who developed the initial project concept.
Following an initial period of concept development and planning, the project has been fundraising for project preparation activities since December 2022. Following a long period of due diligence Linbro Gardens was approved for $1.3m in funding by the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s Green Fund in early April. The project is now aiming to raise an additional $95,000 to complete its raise for planning and design.
Borrower's mission
To date, work on Linbro Gardens has focused on early stage project planning and securing the funds needed to develop the project and enable its lasting impact.
Beyond Linbro Gardens, Akoma’s founding team has led on high impact projects in South Africa and across the world including; development of a multi disciplinary training centre in Johannesburg, which is built predominantly from recycled materials; development of a multipurpose hotel, restaurant and organic farm (built using sustainable materials such as rammed earth) in a world heritage site on the outskirts of Johannesburg; acquisition and management of a ‘changemakers residence’ and community centre in a heritage building in inner city Johannesburg; concept and design development for a centre for migrants and refugees in Durban; construction of centre for genomic research in Nigeria using sustainable alternative materials.
Jocelene has been involved in the project the longest of the partners and prior to meeting Akoma undertook extensive concept development work for the project. Beyond the project, she has a masters in MSc Sustainability and Adaptation in the Built Environment and has a long career working as a project coordinator for a major multinational organisation which seeks to foster global wellbeing and co-operation.
Both Jocelene and Akoma view Linbro Gardens as the first of many similar projects, and believe there is a dire need in South Africa for the roll out of this more inclusive, environmentally sensitive, form of development.
The activities funded by this loan are helping to achieve the above Sustainable Development Goals as defined by the UN.
Intermediary's experience with impact enterprises
For more than 8 years, Red Hat Impact has helped impact enterprises by raising capital and providing other kinds of business and strategy support. We have raised more than $3M from our network of impact investors, and loaned this capital to support 30 enterprises. We use a crowd-lending model to raise loan capital. As of May 2024, we maintain a 98% success rate on loan repayment. We establish close working relationships with all of the impact enterprises we raise debt capital for, and co-manage risks with them during the loan term.
- IMPACT
Impacts and how they are measured
Linbro Gardens will deliver significant ecological and social impact both during the lifecycle of the project and at a systemic level. Linbro Gardens will offer a significant reduction in both embodied and operating GHG emissions and water consumption compared to standard baselines. The project will be certified using Edge (an internationally recognised green building tool), however the project team view the requirements of Edge as a bare minimum and seek to go beyond the 40% reduction on baseline emissions. Specifically the project aims to achieve: Beyond these specific impacts during the project, the project team believes Linbro Gardens will have a systemic impact on the green building sector within South Africa. The project will achieve this through changing perspectives within the built environment sector with a high profile showcase project and building capacity within the green building industry by providing a market for emerging technologies. Through the incorporation of subsidised housing within a community context, Linbro Gardens will have a number of positive benefits on the lives of its residents and beyond. The project will consist of 134 Units of subsidised housing which is targeted at households on below median incomes, in a suburb which is on an up-market trajectory. In addition to this, the community centre will include functions which contribute to social and human capital development including training. By demonstrating the viability of inclusive community scale developments, the Project partners believe we will pave the way for similar projects across South Africa, multiplying and compounding the project specific social benefits and shifting the industry away from a status quo which perpetuates the division of the Apartheid era. Lastly, through the development process itself, Linbro Gardens will act as an engine for social change through providing opportunities for small enterprises to participate in the supply chain. The project targets a minimum of 30% of it’s spent to go to SMMEEs. In addition to using globally acknowledged tools such as EDGE to monitor and measure its impact, the project will develop its own impact framework, drawing on these influences and placing them within a South African context.
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