The City of Cape Town’s Council has approved changes to the Municipal Planning By-Law including a new land-use right to build affordable rental units in areas with the highest demand, enabling more to make the leap from informal housing to affordable rental units.

The amended by-law will run alongside various other strategic measures including hands-on support for micro-developers in the form of pre-approved building plans and development charges discounts from a new incentive fund; releasing more land for affordable housing, publishing Land Discount Guidelines allowing City-owned land to be “heavily” discounted, and utility discounts for social housing developments.

“These by-law changes will blow open the property development industry for thousands of new micro-developers in townships, informal, and lower-income suburbs which have, over the past decade, experienced very rapid densification of backyard dwellings and other less formal structures,” said Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis adding that the City will now be able to incentivise and regulate development in these areas so that units can be of a better quality, safer, compliant with National Building regulations, and importantly, be legally connected to water, sanitation, and electricity.

Also included in the by-law amendments are new incentive overlay zones to enhance development rights in several focus areas (Athlone, Maitland, Parow / Elsies River, Bellville, and Diep River) for mixed-use development backed by affordable housing and public transport.

A further amendment gives the City of Cape Town immediate recourse where developers continue with illegal building work, despite an order to stop construction. “Some developers ignore the orders and continue their construction work as they are prepared to pay the fines involved. In the meantime – and given the fact that these matters often take considerable time to be concluded in court, the surrounding communities are impacted while the City is seeking legal recourse.”

“This new addition not only allows the City to impound the developer’s moveable property but also those belonging to the owner of the said moveable property and those belonging to the contractor involved in the illegal work – this is to close loopholes. By adding this provision, we trust that those who ignore the Municipal Planning By-law and notices issued in terms of the National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act, will think twice before doing so,” said the City’s Deputy Mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, Alderman Eddie Andrews.

Other new revisions aim to regulate the installation of renewable energy structures such as solar roof panels and wind turbines.

The latest review of the Municipal Planning By-Law formed part of a five-year review process which considered policies and strategies adopted by City Council since the last review in 2019.

The revised MPBL includes the following amendments and new provisions, amongst others:

• Incentive overlay zonings (IOZs) making it easier and more cost-effective to develop in focus areas such as Athlone, Maitland, Parow / Elsies River, Bellville, and Diep River. The IOZs assign additional and enhanced development rights to properties that fall within certain areas in these overlay zones.
• Additional use rights for ‘Residential Zoning’ (R1) include affordable rental flats, supplementary dwelling units, and place of instruction. These are subject to certain conditions to control any impact.
• An ‘affordable rental flat’ is a new additional use right on properties in certain areas, enabling the development of small scale affordable rental accommodation. The number of small scale affordable rental units on a single property may not exceed 8 units plus a dwelling house, or 12 units if there is no dwelling house on the land.
• New additions under Section 135 allowing the City to impound moveable property that is being used for illegal building or demolition work if an order to stop work is being disobeyed.
• Revised or new definitions for ‘affordable rental flat’; ‘affordable rental unit’; ‘commune’; ‘electric vehicle charging station’; ‘structure-mounted energy system’; ‘ground-mounted energy system’; ‘micro wind turbine’; ‘outdoor restaurant dining area’ etc.
• Single Residential zoning is renamed ‘Residential Zoning’ (R1) and provides for single-family dwelling houses and additional use rights in low- to medium-density residential neighbourhoods.
• Amendments to the emergency housing provisions now called ‘temporary disaster housing’, under Section 68 to enable the City to provide temporary housing on land that may not be zoned for such purpose for a period of 12 months without needing to undertake a public participation process beforehand if it is reasonable and justifiable, and complies with the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act. The amendment allows for those who are left homeless due to emergencies such as fires and floods to be temporarily relocated to an alternative site in a timeous manner.
• Amendments under Section 111 to allow the City to use email as the method of contacting and notifying interested and affected parties; that parties must provide the City with their email addresses and update these; and a person who does not have access to email may apply for notification by other means. If a resident already has their latest email address with the City they do not have to update it again.
• A new rectification chapter combines the existing regularisation provisions with new revocation and amendment provisions to provide an internal remedy for irregular decisions. This is a cost-effective and quicker alternative to review litigation. The process is procedurally fair.