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Johannesburg - Residential and commercial property developers that for the past 10 years have depended on the Gauteng Development Tribunal to process applications for the rapid zoning and planning of residential areas will in future have to depend on the city council for this process.
Municipalities are known to drag their feet in this respect and players in the property industry are worried that the process of application will significantly slow down in future.
The change has come about following this month’s decision by the Constitutional Court which ends the power of provincial governments to interfere in municipalities’ authority in respect of zoning and planning residential areas.
The immediate consequence of the decision is that property developers in Johannesburg will in future have to submit their applications through municipal structures, says Brian Kew, a director at Werksmans Attorneys’ property practice.
He says the hope is now that the Johannesburg municipality will take developers' needs into consideration and make its processes more streamlined.
He says one of the reasons why the Gauteng Development Tribunal was so popular with developers is because it could process applications in under 12 months, instead of the two years or longer taken by the municipality's planning structures.
This had the result that several developers increasingly sidestepped the municipality’s planning structures in favour of the Development Tribunal.
The essence of the Constitutional Court decision is that municipalities now have exclusive powers to decide on land use.
The Constitutional Court has however admitted that the immediate termination of the tribunals will have untoward practical implications. The tribunals may therefore continue acting for 24 months, but subject to conditions, Kew explains.
Now the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal development tribunals may not receive new land applications within the jurisdiction of the Johannesburg and the eThekwini municipalities, but may merely finalise those already received.
Neil Gopal, chief executive of the SA Property Owners Association, says although his organisation is worried that the approval process will be held up, it is to be hoped that the Johannesburg municipality will use all necessary resources to ensure that approvals are not delayed.
If the Constitutional Court has found that the tribunal is unconstitutional and that the Johannesburg municipality has the authority to take decisions about land use, then the property industry expects the municipalities to exercise their decision-making processes in an efficient manner.
- Sake24.com
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