By Deon van Zyl, Chairman of the Western Cape Property Development Forum (WCPDF).

The City of Cape Town recently closed the official comment period on its proposed amendments to its Municipal Planning Bylaw (MPBL).

Originally, the intended amendments (as understood by the property development and construction industry) were by and large to undertake certain practical corrections to the existing Bylaw; an interim measure while the Bylaw is extensively re-drafted over the next few years. Doing housecleaning on legislation and policy is something that should, in principle, be supported.

However, as evidenced in our own WCPDF submission, we have been fascinated by some aspects that are also being written into the Bylaw, not least the contentious new Chapter 8A in which the City may revisit, change and revoke its own building plan- and town-planning decisions after they have been taken, when functus officio.

In the words of a highly respected member of the legal fraternity (also a member of the WCPDF); “…without limiting that power to exceptional circumstances (e.g. where the application was made fraudulently or where the decision was recorded wrongly due to a clerical error), the proposed amendment is highly objectional.”

“It is inconsistent with the need for certainty and finality in municipal decision-making and it breaches applicants’ constitutional right to reasonable administrative action.”

So why would the City introduce a questionable administrative strategy noting that this may introduce the ability to withdraw real rights from the owners without compensation?

its impact on constitutional rights; many and varied community objections have also been aired during recent public meetings called by the City of Cape Town, specifically focused on the densification strategy of the City. And they are being voiced by communities across the economic landscape.

From a development perspective, a densification strategy is the logical route to go when faced with rapid urbanisation, as is the case in Cape Town. The WCPDF has had wonderful experiences working with township developers, many of whom are actively undertaking what is, in our mind, reasonable densification. We also note the Development Action Group’s own comments on the Bylaw and continue to applaud the work they do.

But when a blanket approach to densification is not thought through, questions will be asked, and ‘densification’ itself will become a swear word. A greater understanding of where investment (densification) should happen must precede densification legislation. In its current form, what guarantee is there that the City will be able to provide services for densification? Or will applicants be stopped at building plan application phase due to lack of service capacities, or urban design or heritage concerns? Blanket densification in its current form is not the solution and somewhat irresponsible.

Where is the growth strategy?

Which now begs the second question: should we be having a conversation about the regulation (the Bylaw) or should we not rather be focusing on a growth vision? How can we co-opt industry and civil society at large to prepare for imminent growth and fast-changing urban needs? For far too long, the Spatial Development Framework has been purported to be the growth vision. Not so – urban vision can no longer only be a two-dimensional plan. The industry, and rate payers as ‘shareholders’ of the City, need to agree on the vision. Densification is inevitable, but the place and form of densification should be influenced by civil society and citizens – a co-design process with the City.

The question then is, how does a co-design process work and how does one co-opt communities into the process of designing Cape Town 2050? The question and conundrum are not unique to Cape Town. Urbanisation is real – unplanned growth or growth not following ‘master plans’ is the norm throughout the world. Plans tend to be static and reviews cyclical, not dissimilar to a five-yearly review such as the current Bylaw process we are commenting on. Political decisions, often due to the slow implementation process of master plans, end up being reactive to short-term bottlenecks and ‘next election’ promises.

The impact of urbanisation has been illustrated by the wastewater treatment crisis that Cape Town Mayor Hill-Lewis inherited and which he has rolled up his sleeves to address, after decades of neglect by predecessors. He has also been brave enough to talk of a 10-million City – double the number of people in the current footprint of the metropolitan city. Add to this the enormous growth in Drakenstein (Paarl) and surrounding towns, and one should start to talk about a Cape City-Region.

The only way to deal with the challenge of growth is to separate metropolitan-scale issues from local area planning – think suburbs, neighbourhoods and communities. The regional economic nodes and linkages (corridors) between these areas are ‘metropolitan’ in impact, but the areas in between are ‘local’ and should be planned as such with a high level of community buy-in.

Ironically, this is precisely the system that used to exist in Cape Town pre unicity: i.e., pre the amalgamation of a many municipalities into a single City government. Pre-unicity, the Cape Metropolitan Council was tasked to look at the bigger picture: to strategise around issues that impacted on more than one municipality, while each individual municipality dealt with its ‘local issues’.

Many large-scale cities across the world continue to use the model of separating local issues from sub-regional issues in their governance structure. Yet, in South Africa, everything has been lumped together, often forcing municipal legislation to follow a one-size-fits-all approach. The planning method does not need to be reinvented: we do not need to re-invent the wheel – plan your structural elements first, and then plan the infill.

For far too long, government has been hiding behind the drafting of legislation as the only tool in its toolbox, but legislation should only be one of the tools to realise the vision. Regulation should follow vision. Now is the time to design the vision for Cape Town 2050. Imagine Elections 2026 being the basis for agreeing the future vision of Cape Town?

Does government still own the table, or does it need to renegotiate its place at the table? Negotiations between business and national government have shown that historic relationships are being recalibrated. Credit for this can go to the business sector (which seems to finally be finding its voice), but it also now needs to go to the South African electorate who have stopped the conversation being dominated by one party-political voice.

Business is certainly looking at its relationship with government through a new lens, but civil society is also re-thinking the relationship: as seen in the response to the densification strategy of the City.

Indeed, civil society and privately-driven initiatives are taking their place at the table. In Cape Town, for example, we see the Cape Chamber of Commerce & Industry creating the Taxi Cluster partnership between the taxi associations and key private businesses. This is a breath of fresh air, recognising the critical role that the taxi industry is providing in mobilising the economy. The growing relationship between business and the taxi industry is illustrating that relationships are being recalibrated and this should be applauded. In the same way that the WCPDF calls to change the priority from regulation to facilitation through vision, we look forward to seeing government’s response to the initiatives between business and the taxi industry.

But the bottom line is that the relationship between civil society and government is clearly changing.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Property Wheel.

The Western Cape Property Development Forum (WCPDF) is a registered non-profit organisation (246-760 NPO). It was founded in 2008 to create awareness, address the challenges that face the property development and construction industry, and to be the collective voice of the industry in the Western Cape. The WCPDF focuses on the full production line of private and public property projects and associated infrastructure provision.