This section outlines and discusses the main recommendations of the Commission regarding the nature of the spatial planning system in South Africa.
The Commission believes that the function of spatial planning is of considerable national importance. The failure of the planning system to protect the rights and to meet the needs of the majority of South Africans as described in Chapter 2 is not a case for abandoning spatial planning. Indeed, positive, creative planning is now more necessary than ever. The current distorted settlement pattern found in many places will not correct itself automatically, nor will it be addressed by default. The development of more efficient and enabling settlement systems, which is necessary to improve the quality of life of all South Africans, requires creative thought and bold, purposeful action.
A positive planning system is necessary for a number of reasons:
To perform its function properly, however, spatial planning must be viewed, and must operated, as a synthesising holistic practice. There is a disturbing tendency, for example, to view it as a separated sectoral function, equivalent to, and on a par with, ‘environmental planning’, ‘transport planning’ and the like. A similar position, for example, has crept in in the United Kingdom over the last decade. It is now increasingly recognised in that context that the environmental consequences of this practice have been appalling. The primary role of spatial planning is to integrate different sectoral elements creatively.
The Commission believes that the current three-sphere spatial planning system should be continued. Provincial, local and, to a much lesser extent, national spheres of government are all legitimate and important arenas of spatial decision-making. The Commission believes, however, that the local government sphere should be the cutting edge of the system, in the sense that most spatial decisions should appropriately be made in this sphere. However, such planning must be contextualised. For this to happen, local planning must be informed by both provincial and national spatial priorities and plans. The principles for determining the locus of decision-making, and the practical formulation of these principles, in the sense of ascribing roles, are discussed below.
There is a world-wide trend to decentralise most spatial planning functions to local governments. It must be emphasised, however, that this is by no means universal. In some countries (such as Cuba and Iraq), there is not the political will to do so. In others (such as Botswana and Kenya) there is not the capacity. In these countries, one planning agency does all of the planning at local, regional/provincial, state and national levels. It is believed that South Africa has the political will and the capacity to embrace decentralisation confidently.
The Commission has been struck the considerable terminological confusion which surrounds the arena of spatial planning in South Africa, some of which has already been alluded to in Section 1.2. It believes it is important to adopt a single standard system of terminology. The confusion exists at two levels.
The first is at the level of spatial planning as an activity. This commonly takes the form of the interchangeable use of terms such as ‘spatial planning’, ‘land planning’, ‘land use planning’, ‘settlement planning’ and ‘physical planning’, as well as common terms with multiple meanings such as the ubiquitous ‘township’.
The terms ‘land planning’ and ‘land use planning’ have connotations of comprehensive planning relating to land, an approach that is now widely discredited. The term ‘physical planning’, as well as having similar connotations, blurs human actions on the landscape and natural systems. For these reasons, it is proposed that the term ‘spatial planning’ be uniformly accepted when referring to the organisation of space. It is fully recognised that this, too, has historically negative connotations: it was used in the apartheid era to describe a sphere of activity which was purportedly ‘neutral’ and ‘technical’ but which in practice was a powerful instrument of separate development and social control. Despite this, spatial planning remains a more accurate term when referring to broader spatial organisation and is most commonly used internationally.
Spatial planning, as discussed in this Draft Green Paper, is a public sector activity which creates a public investment and regulatory framework within which private sectors decision-making and investment occurs. The public sector activity of spatial planning has two broad dimensions: proactive planning, which defines desirable directions, actions and outcomes; and land development and management, which is concerned essentially with regulating land use change (driven, usually, by private sector initiatives), and with protecting individual and group rights in relation to land.
The term ‘settlement planning’ should only be used to describe the act of designing more detailed layouts, or ‘township establishment’. The term ‘land planning’ should only be used in relation to the land development and management system which deals with specific parcels of land.
The second type of confusion relates to the form of plans. Here, a wide range of terms are used loosely, sometimes interchangeably, and almost always in a non-defined way. Frequently, too, these plans have a different legal status. Terms of this kind include master plans, guide plans, strategic plans, structure plans, town planning schemes, development plans and so on. This confusion has been compounded in recent years by the introduction of land development objectives (LDOs) under the DFA, and of integrated development plans (IDPs) under the Local Government Transition Act. There is an overlap between the strategic, proactive, forward-looking intentions of these two types of plans, although they are not the same.
The Commission proposes that a single comprehensive term be adopted to describe plans produced by or for public authorities. This is the term ‘integrated development plan’. All spheres of government should produce such a plan.
Integrated development planning has a number of dimensions. The term ‘integrated’ implies that it pulls together social, economic, environmental, spatial, cultural and political concerns into a single set of processes, in which the relationship between these concerns is considered. The term ‘integrated’ also implies the integration of implementation and directional issues and the alignment of internal corporate management issues with external influences. The term ‘development’ is holistic. The ‘spatial plan’ of a sphere of government, therefore, is only one, but an important aspect of the broader integrated development planning process. The spatial plan can only be responsibly drafted in the considered understanding of the social, economic, environmental, cultural and political implications of its proposals. The spatial dimension of integrated development planning is the focus of this Draft Green Paper.
The Commission supports the view that there should be a broadly common direction for, and form or system of, spatial planning in South Africa at this moment in its history, when relatively radical changes to settlement forms are required. After critical review, it finds its starting points for this in a number of sources.
The Constitution replaces historical hierarchical tiers of government with more equal ‘spheres’. In practice, in planning terms, this creates a slight tension for operationally there is a hierarchical dimension with the larger spheres having certain overriding powers over others. Most importantly, the Constitution requires co-operative governance amongst the three spheres of government and allocates powers over planning to them differentially. It requires national and provincial action where provincial and municipal spheres cannot discharge their responsibilities; provides for national norms and standards to be set; calls for the protection of healthy environments and the right to property; requires the promotion of social and economic rights in a non-discriminatory way; and demands open and accountable governance.
The DFA introduced a number of far-reaching changes to the planning system as mentioned in Chapter 2.
Firstly, the DFA sought to place a set of principles, central to the planning system, which gave a common national direction. The Chapter 1 principles apply to all land development and spatial planning in South Africa. They are intended to bring about radical changes to the characteristic form and structure of South African settlements. They represent an outright rejection of the low density, sprawling, fragmented and largely monofunctional forms of development which resulted under apartheid in both urban and rural areas. They call for more compact, integrated and mixed-used settlement forms. The principles require that there is a harmonious relationship between settlements and the natural environment and emphasise the importance of environmental sustainability. They promote security of tenure, the use of land development to promote human development, the maximum use of public participation and conflict resolution.
The Commission feels that these principles in combination constitute an appropriated vision for what spatial planning should be seeking to achieve in South Africa, particularly given the fact that in terms of the legislation both national ministers and their provincial counterparts (MECs) are enabled (and encouraged) to add to the principles in order to maximise their impact and the make them more specific to local conditions.
The Commission considers it unfortunate that, to date, little has been added to the principles by the provinces. In most cases where provincially-specific planning bills or acts have been promulgated, the principles have merely been reworded and (sometimes) re-ordered to give them greater clarity. The one exception is the KwaZulu-Natal Planning Act no. 5 of 1998 which contains an entirely new section on principles. The new principles primarily address the process of planning (they require that it is enabling and developmentally-orientated; that it is people centred; that it consistently deals with proactive planning as well as land management in an integrated way; that it is interactive, allowing wide opportunities for participation; and that it is accountable). The principles also assign a limited role to provinces relative to local authorities. (In terms of this, provincial responsibility for planning development and resource conservation should be limited to the formulation of policies; setting norms and standards; the setting of regional developmental, planning and environmental goals; co-ordination of regional and local processes; ensuring adherence to fair and open procedures; and appeal and review functions.) The Act asserts that provincial government must only execute planning and development functions where there is no other subordinate authority with the necessary ability.
Finally, it calls for the promotion of an environmental ethic and emphasises the relationship between environmental quality and survival in rural areas. It stresses the importance of being sensitive to, working through and strengthening rural social dynamics and institutions.
The Commission is of the view that all provinces should avail themselves of the opportunity of expanding the DFA principles to mould them closely to local conditions.
The Commission’s investigation into spatial planning practices nationally since 1994 revealed that the principles have not yet had a major impact on the planning products which have emerged. The reasons for this are numerous but two of the most common are a lack of knowledge and difficulties of interpretation of the principles. To this end, the Commission has produced two documents (a manual, which interprets the meaning of the principles, and the reasons why they were promulgated) and a resource document which provides a more technical interpretation of the principles and their implications for spatial planning). It is the Commission’s view that a vigorous communication and education initiative should be launched around these instruments in order to make the principles far more effective in the short term. This is discussed further in Section 3.9.2.
Finally, the Commission recommends that the DFA principles should be reworded, reordered and expanded to make them more understandable. Suggestions in this regard have been submitted to the Minister.
The DFA also sought to introduce a form of planning which was substantially different from that which had prevailed in the past, although evidence before the Commission indicates the significance of this has not been widely recognised. In those provinces that have been through the process of preparing LDOs and administering tribunals, there has been considerably more buy-in and understanding of the DFA paradigm. The proposed system has a number of characteristics:
After critical reflection, the Commission regards the central precepts of this system as correct and important. The implementation of the DFA has been the chief impetus to the reform of planning. The Commission recognises that the system is more difficult to implement (in the sense that it requires more local judgements) than a rule-based system, but feels that this is both desirable and inevitable. Principle- and policy-based decision-making will become easier with more experience. The Commission therefore believes that the central elements of the DFA (as opposed to all of its details) have provided, and continue to provide, an appropriate starting point for a new planning system.
Improvement requires, in the first instance, some certainty being provided in national legislation that will guide legal reform. The DFA ushered in a system which, if refined and amended, could assist in creating legal certainty. It is useful and necessary to have one national planning law that sets norms and standards that are applicable across the country and throughout the spheres. The DFA offers a springboard to this. The nine provincial acts that will eventually be passed and the DFA should ultimately be the only planning and development laws in the country. While there may be provincial differences in approach and detail, they should all adhere to a similar model of planning and be bound by similar national norms and standards.
More detail on the manner in which this should be done is provided in Chapter 5.
It is believed that, in moving towards a strong, integrated, planning system, the correct approach to change is one of incrementalism. All spheres of government have been through fairly radical processes of transformation and restructuring over the last five years. What is now required is a period of consolidation and the incremental alignment of different parts of the planning system to achieve synergy. The Draft Green Paper therefore makes no attempt to develop a blueprint. Rather, it advances a series of recommendations which, if implemented, the Commission feels will set spatial planning on a positive path of change.
International research has shown that the first lesson to be learnt (and perhaps the most important) is that, appropriate planning systems evolve. They cannot, and should not, be copied. Internationally, there are almost as many planning systems as there are countries and all have their strengths and weaknesses. The correct approach is to build on strengths and strengthen weaknesses.
The Commission believes that it is important to apply the concept of minimalism to spatial planning at all scales. The concept does not mean that government has no role to play in planning to change our settlements. Rather, it is concerned with doing less to achieve more, and has a number of dimensions.
Firstly, it recognises that spatial plans should not attempt to be comprehensive but should take the form of frameworks of public actions and investments. These frameworks (made up of the integrated public elements of green space, movement, public facilities and institutions, hard open space, and utility and emergency services) should define the minimum public actions necessary to achieve the goals and objectives of the plan. By so doing, the minimalist approach seeks to create maximum space for the energy and initiative of NGOs, communities and the private sector. Obviously, judgements are required about what constitutes the minimum necessary public actions. At times, it may be necessary to go quite far, at others, actions should be far more strategic. At all times, however, the plan should contain sufficient clarity of logic and detail to guide decision makers when they are confronted with land development applications.
Secondly, the form of the plan will not be the same from circumstance to circumstance. For example, in large local authorities, the plan (or system of plans) will necessarily be quite complex in form to meet management requirements. In very small local authorities management issues may be simpler and a much simpler form of plan, placing far less strain on capacity, will suffice. Local judgements need to be brought to bear on what is necessary.
Thirdly, it emphasises the importance of prioritisation. Authorities at all scales should be seeking to apply the ‘80%–20% principle’ – the recognition that frequently 80% of the benefit can be achieved through the first (strategic) 20% investment in time, energy and resources. The plan should primarily be seen as an instrument to define the actions which generate maximum impact.
International precedent shows that successful co-ordination and integration of clearly-allocated functions across spheres of government is a key success factor in achieving positive planning outcomes. Co-operation and integration is required both between and within spheres of government. The analysis of the local context (Chapter 2) indicates that there are currently considerable problems in this regard in South Africa.
In contexts where multi-layered spatial planning systems apply, a number of initiatives have commonly been applied internationally to promote greater co-operation and integration:
Co-operative governance and integration should be vigorously pursued both between and within spheres of government. International research shows that a key success factor in determining the efficacy of public spatial planning initiatives is co-ordination and integration between public agencies. Indeed, its importance is such that it has been argued that the lack of co-ordination and integration has been one of the main reasons for a lack of progress in the eradication of poverty in South America in recent years. The Commission considers that the following measures to improve the situation are necessary in South Africa.
The first of these measures is that effective planning for development requires a departmental home for spatial planning.
Better performing settlements, the achievement of which is the raison d’etre of a spatial planning system, will not come about automatically, or as the cumulative result of different sectoral initiatives. Spatial planning requires a political champion. A major difficulty in this regard currently is the strongly sectoral composition of Cabinet portfolios. Many countries, for example, have Ministries of Urban Development and Rural Development, which are more integrative in their focus. This lack of an integrative focus in South Africa is commonly held to be a major reason for the ineffectiveness of the Urban and Rural Development frameworks.
In a more sectoral alignment, there are numerous possibilities for the locus of spatial planning – the departments of Environment Affairs and Tourism, Transport, Housing, Land Affairs and Constitutional Development are all contenders.
After reflection, the Commission believes that the Department of Land Affairs is the most appropriate ‘home’, since its sectoral focus (land) is less specialised than the others and more closely encompasses the concerns of spatial planning. It should be the responsibility of this department to vigorously pursue the transformation of South African settlements and actively to promote co-operation and integration between and within spheres of government in the field of spatial planning. Implementing this recommendation may have some legislative consequences. For example, in terms of Section 22 (1) of the Environmental Conservation Act no. 73 of 1989, the minister is required to authorise certain activities identified in Section 21 of the Act. One of these is land use and transformation. It is not sensible to have two functionaries for the same purpose. The Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism should certainly be required to make an input into land use applications, but not to authorise them.
The second requirement is that of clarifying planning roles and relationships between spheres of government.
Spatial planning legitimately needs to occur at all spheres of government. A major problem which exists at present is that there is a lack of clarity about decision- making responsibilities between spheres. This is particularly true with respect to provincial and national spheres.
The Commission believes that the guiding principle should be that decisions should be taken at the smallest scale compatible with the decision being considered holistically. Planning frameworks at ‘larger scale’ (provincial and national) spheres of government therefore should be informed by the following criteria:
The appropriate functions for each sphere are dealt with in Section 3.7, using these criteria, by applying the principles outlined in Section 3.6.3.
The Constitution establishes spheres, as opposed to hierarchical tiers, of governance, each of which covers a different scale. For reasons of co-ordination and effective performance of government, the Commission recommends a process of formal plan approval: national government should review and approve provincial plans, and provinces should review and approve local plans. The reason for this recommendation is that in functional planning terms there is a need for ‘central’ authorities to ensure that standards of performance are met, and that co-ordination is achieved. For example, decisions relating to the routing of a provincial road must be based on considerations which necessarily go beyond the territory of a local government. The process of approval also ensures that national and provincial governments are fully appraised of initiatives at smaller scales.
In making this recommendation, the Commission is fully aware of a strong feeling in many local authority circles, in particular, that provinces should only have a facilitative role, rather than an approval role in relation to local authority plans.
The process of approval however, should not be wilful – national and provincial authorities should not simply seek to impose their will over local decisions. Assessment should mainly occur on the basis of:
There should not be a need for national government to approve local government plans because the co-ordination role should really lie in provincial governments. However, there may be a similar need for national government to ‘approve’ provincial plans, particularly as they relate to the spatial alignment of spending under nationally-funded programmes. There also needs to be a ‘conversation’ between national, provincial and local government and a forum should be created to facilitate this.
This is arguably the most powerful mechanism to promote co-operative governance. Decisions contained in provincial and national plans should be made in conjunction with local authorities and provinces affected by those decisions. In the event of unresolvable conflicts, formal conflict resolution procedures should be initiated. Local plans should in turn be informed by provincial and national priorities.
In effect, the Chapter 1 principles of the DFA currently perform this function. These principles should be made dynamic through an ongoing process of adaptation and addition at both national and provincial scales.
A single law, which incorporates all dimensions of spatial planning and which, particularly, integrates spatial planning, the environment and transportation, remains first prize. After careful consideration, however, the Commission believes that this is not the appropriate time to proceed with this. The last four years have seen a vigorous period of drafting legislation and have resulted in considerable sectoral legislative improvements. The Commission believes that a period of consolidation is required. In the short term, ways should be sought to achieve greater tangency and integration between existing laws, particularly by evaluating whether to use amendments to the DFA as the tool.
The Commission believes that this power should exist but should only be used in extreme cases – in the face of wilful recalcitrance or an absolute lack of capacity. The latter case, the power should only be mobilised on request and officials and decision-makers of the more local area of jurisdiction should be fully involved in the plan-making process.
While the Commission is aware of the serious capacity constraints existing in all spheres of government, it feels there is considerable mileage in the concept of national and provincial officials with particular skills being seconded for short periods to work with local officials on processes of plan formulation. The potential of initiatives of this kind in two-way capacity building is considerable. In the short term, assistance to district councils should be a priority.
Government in all spheres is commonly divided into units (departments) which have responsibilities for different sectors – housing, education, transport, land and so on. One reason for this division is that the management of different sectors frequently requires specialist knowledge. While sectoral divisions are perhaps inevitable to deal with ongoing operational issues, the danger, particularly in relation to planning, is that different sectoral divisions pursue their own agendas: each seeks to maximise their arena of sectoral specialisation, without fully understanding the role of that sectoral element in the operation of the settlement as a whole. Achieving integration – the development of a common definition of a problem and a vision about the way forward – is therefore essential. The emphasis should thus be on developing inter-disciplinary, as opposed to multi-disciplinary, approaches. (Interdisciplinary approaches bring different sectoral knowledge to bear on a shared objective; multi disciplinary approaches pursue their own sectoral objectives.) An important realisation is that attempts, to optimise one sector over others, however well-meaning, are likely to undermine the operation of the settlement, because compromises are required.
There are a number of routes through which greater sectoral integration can be pursued. Within a governmental context, the need is for effective processes of negotiation and interaction, and the establishment of institutions able to manage this. Listed below are some suggestions as to how greater integration can be achieved. They are not mutually exclusive and can occur at different stages:
The last two approaches are the most important and potentially powerful.
Public sector budgets are singly the most powerful mechanisms for implementing spatial plans. An important dimension of the new planning paradigm ushered in by the DFA is that public investment, as opposed to legal control, becomes the primary instrument for achieving spatial change. Accordingly, any successful development planning framework needs to be integrally linked to budgetary and financial planning cycles. Government currently has various budgetary cycles, including the three-year Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), the annual budgetary cycles of national and provincial governments, which cover the same financial year; and the municipal budgetary year, which currently lags three months behind the national cycle.
For integrated development planning to be effective, the planning process must develop points of contact with these different cycles and with the political life of decision-making institutions. The Commission recommends that the work already undertaken in this respect by the Department of Finance should be extended, and brought into contact with the necessities of planning for the ‘external’ environment particularly at local scale.
A word of caution is, however, necessary. Significant spatial initiatives frequently require a longer term financial commitment than one budgeting cycle, if their full potential is to be realised and if significant spatial restructuring, as opposed to mere fiddling, is to occur. The danger is that if budgetary cycles are slavishly followed, it is precisely the most important projects which will be shelved indefinitely. In strategic and carefully considered cases, decision-making bodies must be prepared to commit finances for periods longer that their immediate political life.
One of the most effective ways to promote integration within governmental institutions is to create inter-sectoral, inter-disciplinary (and inter-cultural) teams – if necessary reinforced from the private-sector – to undertake complex projects relating to spatial restructuring and integration. In this way, a common interpretation of the problem is engendered and ideas become collectively owned. This sharing promotes the development of a common corporate culture which is injected into line-function operations by the individuals concerned.
This is discussed in Chapter 5.
At the present time, far-reaching spatial planning occurs within sectoral departments and there is little co-ordination between these. It is the Commission’s view that one agency in national government should be identified to co-ordinate inter-departmentally, by identifying sectoral points of tangency between programmes, analysing spatial effects of policies and prioritising actions to accomplish spatial and temporal alignment. The Co-ordination and Implementation Unit in the Office of the Deputy President (CIU) has begun to play elements of this role and may be an appropriate vehicle for the role. If sufficient capacity does not exist within this unit, the task should be undertaken by the Department of Land Affairs.
At present, these primarily take the form of the Chapter 1 principles of the DFA. These should not be seen as static but should be strengthened and expanded on an ongoing basis as new circumstances arise. There should also be national guidelines set in respect of key aspects of the planning system so that there are national norms and standards that are common throughout the country. For example, these could include that planning should be policy-led; that the spatial element of locally formulated integrated development plans should inform decisions regarding land development; that land development management must be uniformly applied within a municipality’s boundaries; and so on.
National government has a responsibility to develop the means of supporting provinces which have difficulties in achieving national norms and standards in planning, through providing support and assisting in building capacity.
National government must have routes open which give it the means to liaise with other spheres of government. Effective co-ordination does not result from institutional mechanisms, it results from a complex lattice of formal and informal working arrangements and it needs to be consciously pursued on an ongoing basis. Nevertheless, shared information is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for this. It is therefore necessary to establish an institution which facilitates the sharing of information about spatial planning issues between national, provincial and local spheres of government on a regular basis, and which has the ability to secure necessary inputs from other line function departments as and when necessary. It should bring together the senior technical officials and political leadership necessary to obtain political buy-in. Attendance at meetings should be compulsory and the agendas should be carefully set to further the cause of spatial planning and settlement restructuring. All spheres should have a role in setting the agenda and the body should report directly to Cabinet.
The Forum for Effective Planning and Development (FEPD), while admirable in intention, has not proved effective and is consequently not an appropriate organ. It should be the responsibility of the Department of Land Affairs to establish such a body.
It is important to emphasise that a central mechanism for promoting co-ordination and vertical integration is the requirement that all spheres of government engage in development planning processes. These exercises should be undertaken co-operatively to the greatest extent possible.
The focus of national monitoring needs to be the DFA principles. If the principles are to become central to the spatial planning system in South Africa. it is clearly necessary to monitor their application at all scales of planning. It is clear, however, that given resource and capacity constraints, particularly in local government, the monitoring system must be direct, useful and relatively simple to apply.
Monitoring can take many forms. The articulation of the most appropriate form and criteria depends on the purpose/s for which monitoring is being applied. At least four potential purposes can be identified.
There is also a time dimension to the issue. Both the purpose and the form of the monitoring system could, and probably should, change over time as the system matures.
It is the opinion of the Commission that the dominant purposes at this time should be educative and facilitative. The monitoring programme should therefore link into an educative and communication campaign around the principles. Further, it feels that the issue of lack of capacity in all spheres of government cannot be over-emphasised – the system should not place further pressure on already overloaded institutions.
A simple system is therefore proposed:
The Commission is of the view that a national spatial planning function should be a very limited one and should primarily result from the necessary national activities of sectoral line function departments. All national line function departments should be required to:
The spatial implications of new policies should also be routinely assessed for consistency with the DFA principles by the planning co-ordination committee established by the Department of Land Affairs.
All provinces should appoint a core spatial planning team to develop and manage a provincial spatial plan and to co-ordinate the spatial outcomes of line-function activities. This team should report directly to the executive head of provincial government.
Provincial government could play a role in co-ordinating sectoral national priorities with their own plans and those of local government. Participation in the national planning co-ordination committee to be established by the Department of Land Affairs potentially plays an important role in achieving this.
A single piece of legislation that is comprehensive enough to cover all planning functions should be drafted for each province. It falls within the Constitutional competency of provinces to do this. This should remove the duplication of legislation and the conflict between the different pieces of legislation created by the previous political dispensation. It must also ensure that planning legislation promotes clarity, consistency and development. The content of this legislation is covered in Chapter 5 of this document.
Provincial authorities should be responsible for translating national norms and standards into provincially specific forms both in law, as discussed in Chapter 5, and also by playing a monitoring and co-ordination role. The process of establishing norms and standards should be one of a two-way process of communication with affected communities. There is evidence, for example, that zone committees would prefer facilities of a lower standard sooner rather than having to wait longer for facilities of a higher standard.
The role of provincial government in respect of local government should be:
Ongoing monitoring of progress towards achieving more integrated, equitable and efficient settlements is essential if provinces are to identify where support and assistance is required. Where provincial planning commissions exist, these should be charged with the ongoing assessment of progress. In other cases, this responsibility should rest on the core spatial planning unit within the office of the executive head of provincial government.
All provinces should be required to establish a local government forum, with representation in the form of senior official responsible for spatial planning from all local authorities, which meets bi-annually to discuss progress and problems.
Provinces should be required to prepare a provincial spatial plan which is one component of the provincial IDP, the latter being (as is occurring in most provinces) a development of the work already done on provincial growth and development strategies (PGDSs). The minimum content of such a provincial spatial plan should include:
Not all necessary spatial decision-making, at a scale which transcends local authority boundaries, can be appropriately taken at the scale of a provincial plan. It should be the responsibility of provincial government to undertake, where appropriate, regional planning. Normally, regional plans are necessary to develop strategies for areas which:
The designation of the boundaries of the regional planning areas must be carefully considered and must be determined on the basis of the purpose of the plan. In all cases, the planning process should be undertaken co-operatively with affected local and, if appropriate, provincial authorities.
Since the local scale represents the ‘cutting-edge’ of the spatial planning system, the spatial planning functions of local authorities are discussed in greater detail in Section 3.8 below. There are three forms of authority, however, which are special cases and require specific comment – metropolitan councils, district councils and traditional authorities.
The Municipal Structures Act provides that metropolitan councils are Category A municipalities. This means they have exclusive jurisdiction in their areas. They no longer share their executive and legislative authority with local councils. This will hopefully improve what has been a problem in the past few years, while the division of powers was largely negotiated. The spin-off from a planning and development perspective is that there will be greater certainty regarding roles.
The Municipal Structures Act also tries to bring about more certainty in respect of the role of district councils vis-a-vis local councils in their areas. The Act sets out the functions of district councils with some specificity and expands their role to some extent. District councils must, among other things, undertake:
Local councils have all other powers and functions given to municipalities in sections 156 and 229 of the Constitution (including what is contained in the schedules). In other words, other than the powers explicitly given to district councils in the Act, all other powers fall to local councils. The Act also provides that the MEC may adjust the powers between local councils and district councils. This is largely based on the inability, because of capacity problems, of many local councils to perform their duties.
These provisions are extremely important to the improvement of development planning, as a great many rural councils have no capacity to undertake planning nor do they have control over resources of sufficient scale to impact on the quality of life of their inhabitants. This situation is unlikely to change significantly within the foreseeable future.
The Commission is of the view that this reality needs to be acknowledged. The district councils should become the primary instruments of rural planning, except in those cases where there is demonstrated capacity at a local council level. The issue of developing strong planning processes in the rural areas is particularly important for a number of reasons. Firstly, the development problem is commonly severe in these areas and considerable urgency is required to allocate resources in ways which have significant impact. Secondly, the human capacity to participate in conventional participatory processes is often weak and innovative ways need to be found to ensure effective participation. Thirdly, the social impact of large projects is frequently greatest in these areas. Fourthly, the repeal of the Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act no. 20 of 1970 has left many rural areas vulnerable and their protection is dependent on the production and implementation of good plans.
Incapacitated local rural councils should be involved in planning processes undertaken by district councils but their primary functions should be consultative (they should carry local perspectives and priorities to district council), advisory and implementational only with respect to limited functions. This situation should be periodically assessed. Local areas which can demonstrate viability and capacity should be granted greater authority on an exception basis by the MECs.
This proposal has three implementation consequences. Firstly, MECs should assess planning capacity at rural and district council levels as a matter of urgency and allocate planning powers accordingly. Secondly, boundary delimitation should ensure that the areas of district councils are appropriate to integrated development planning. Thirdly, it should be a primary provincial function to bolster capacity and provide support at the district council level.
Large amounts of land, particularly in rural areas, fall under the effective control of traditional or tribal authorities. From a spatial planning perspective, this is a thorny problem. In most cases, the state is the legal owner of the land and the Minister of Land Affairs is the trustee with fiduciary trusteeship obligations. However, the people themselves (tribal members) are the de facto owners and are to be recognised as such in the White Paper on South African Land Policy. A key policy approach with regard to tenure reform is to separate the functions of ownership from those of governance.
From a spatial planning perspective, the key problem is that tribal authorities control land allocations and thus, effectively, sub-division. This is frequently done without any reference to planning principles relating to efficiency or, indeed, to any larger spatial organisational system. The result is settlement forms which are highly inefficient, wasteful in terms of land and almost impossible to service effectively. For example, the peri-urban area around Umtata (effectively an area of urban sprawl), extends over 60km from the town itself and contains almost none of the opportunities of either urban or rural living. The problem is compounded by the fact that the performance of the traditional or tribal leaders, as de facto settlement managers, is highly variable – some are concerned and developmentally motivated; others are not.
In principle, in terms of planning, there is no reason why these areas should be treated differently from the rest of the country. Effective planning is necessary to ensure viable settlements and the elected authority should be responsible for that function. The Municipal Structures Act reflects this. It does not however, exclude traditional or tribal leaders from the process. It provides that these leaders may participate in municipal councils and that before a municipality takes a decision which directly affects an area of a traditional or tribal authority, it must give the leader of the authority an opportunity to make an input. The Act also provides for the MEC to make regulations dealing with the role of traditional or tribal leaders in municipal matters. When preparing such regulations, MECs need to consider carefully what an appropriate role should be. For instance, their participation could start at the consultation level where needs are identified.
The Commission supports the sentiments expressed in the Municipal Structures Act, and believes that in each province the MECs should create an appropriate role for traditional and tribal leaders to participate in planning. Where necessary, appropriate training to strengthen settlement management skills should be provided by provincial authorities.
This section focuses on the spatial planning system in local government. There are two reasons for this. The first is that local government is, in a sense, the cutting edge of the spatial planning system: most spatial planning decisions appropriately should be made in this sphere by elected representatives, or those to whom they delegate authority. The second is to emphasise the relationship between the forward-planning system and the regulatory or land development management planning system.
The spatial planning system in local government has two broad dimensions: a proactive or forward planning system and a decision making land management system. The more regulatory and land management aspect is dealt with in Chapter 4. The final point of reference for all spatial planning decisions are the DFA principles. These in turn are expressed through the dimensions of the integrated development planning process, as outlined below.
All local authorities, whether in urban or in rural contexts, are required to engage in integrated development planning for their areas of jurisdiction, as defined in Section 3.7.3. All local authorities should be required to include a proactive spatial component in their integrated development plans. The primary purpose of the plan should be to move towards the emergence of more integrated, equitable, efficient and sustainable settlements. Specifically the spatial elements of the plan should:
The plan should not attempt to be comprehensive. It should take the form of a broad framework which identifies the minimum public actions necessary to achieve the direction of the plan. The spatial dimension must have sufficient clarity of logic to guide decision-makers in respect of development applications.
In rural contexts the plan should deal with all key aspect of land development, including strategic environmental impact assessments. Also, issues such as resolution of land rights, tenure issues, natural resource development, local institutions and rules should be addressed.
The Chapter 1 principles of the DFA should be central to the entire planning system. These principles should centrally inform the proactive integrated development plan that is drawn up and approved by local politicians in a participatory process. These together should provide the primary criteria against which applications for land use change should be assessed. The local plan essentially should give contextually-specific form to DFA principles. Provinces’ legal frameworks for local planning, in most cases the provincial LDO regulations, provide a basis for this. However, these frameworks will have to be enhanced and developed to give municipalities greater guidance in this regard.
The plan should consist of four major components.
The international success record of different planning instruments underscores three points:
There is no consensus internationally about whether such instruments should be prescribed. Some federal nations such as Germany have uniform planning systems – a plan looks the same and operates in a broadly similar manner in every part of the country. Other federal nations, such as Australia, Brazil and the United States, allow states and even local authorities to write their own laws and regulations.
The Commission believes that there are advantages in having a broadly similar spatial planning system nationally (particularly from the perspective of large developers and technical exchange) while still allowing for local variation and innovation. The national framework should only set minimum requirements, for elaboration according to regional and local needs and conditions.
The primary public spatial elements which need to be co-ordinated and brought into a synergistic relationship with each other are the green system (places where built development should not be allowed); movement; hard public space (open urban spaces such as squares and other forms and public space which accommodate the informal activities which occur within settlements); social facilities; and utility and emergency services.
At minimum, the plan should identify the following:
All land development decisions and land use change decisions made by the relevant bodies should be made to conform to the strategic spatial plan. More detail could be given in provincial laws and regulations regarding the content of the plan than is given here. All that is suggested is that this list should constitute the minimum content.
The Commission believes that participation in the plan-making process, and ultimately the approval of such plans, is a primary responsibility of politically-elected representatives. They should also become a key conduct of information in matters relating to the plan between the plan-making process and their constituents, although direct participation of affected parties is an essential ingredient of the plan formulation process.
Inadequate capacity relative to emerging developmental demands is arguably the most serious issue facing the planning system, and thus facing the challenge of creating more integrated, efficient and liveable urban and rural settlements in South Africa. The issue is both quantitative (an absolute shortage of people) and qualitative (a lack of adequate skills). The problem exists at all spheres of government and it relates to both officials and decision-makers.
There is no short-term solution to the problem. There are, however, steps that should be implemented as a matter of urgency. These fall into two categories: supply-side actions (actions designed to increase capacity), and demand-side actions (actions designed to decrease the demands being place on governmental planning systems). Demand-side actions are addressed in the sections of this Draft Green Paper dealing with spatial planning and decision making in local government, particularly Section 3.8 and Chapter 4.
Although there are numerous training courses in the field of urban and regional planning in South Africa, there is cause for concern about the outputs from some of these. A number of these institutions train people in terms of standardised rules, rather than teaching them to think creatively about issues and, thus, developing capacity to deal with new circumstances. Many of ‘rules’ that are being passed on were produced to support a planning philosophy which is diametrically opposed to that which the DFA and recent policy documents seek to introduce. Further, there is little clarity about the role of, and the relationship between, different types of educational institutions (for example, universities, technikons, community colleges) in the field of planning.
The Commission suggests that a national workshop on planning education be convened by the Department of Land Affairs, where issues of curricula and the relationship between educational and training institutions can be resolved and an educational strategy developed.
The principles
It is apparent from evidence before the Commission that to date the DFA principles have only weakly informed planning and land-related decision-making in South Africa. If this is to change and, as is the intention, the principles are to become central to spatial planning at all scales, a major educational and communication campaign about the meaning of the principles and their implications in practice must be mounted as a matter of priority. The campaign should be targeted at the full range of players concerned with major land-related decisions: the professions concerned with the built environment; government officials; councillors and other political decision makers; people engaged in mediation and in conflict resolution; developers; and so on. It is clear that different groups would need to be targeted in different ways – a multi-pronged campaign is required.
The Commission has already produced two documents relating to the interpretation of the DFA principles – a resource document and a manual – which can form the substantive focus of the campaign. It is the Commission’s recommendation that a variety of other inter-related forms of communication should be used. These should include:
Such a campaign needs to be carefully co-ordinated and driven. The Commission recommends that the Department of Land Affairs appoint a communication expert to design and spearhead the strategy, once the main work of the Commission has been completed. If a standing planning commission is established, the communications expert should work closely with this body, as well as with the departments of Land Affairs, Environmental Affairs and Tourism and Constitutional Development, the South African Council and Town and Regional Planners, other land related professional associations, and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA).
The planning paradigm
The planning paradigm ushered in by the DFA is not yet fully understood or supported. Local politicians have not yet seen the benefit or the importance of playing a central role in forward planning, particularly regarding space. Developers are not yet fully aware of how important it is for them to engage in the integraetd development planning process so that they inform, and are informed by, development priorities set by local authorities. Officials who are used to administering a different system of planning that is far more control-orientated than discretionary are, in many cases, not clear about how to administer the new systems.
Within this context, it is recommended that the same kinds of information systems be used to educate all key roleplayers on normative planning.
The problem does not only exist in relation to local government. Much work is needed to train provincial politicians and officials around how integrated development planning at local scale should intersect with provincial planning. In addition, national government needs to understand the centrality of local integrated development plans, and work iteratively with both provincial and local government when undertaking its own planning.
Tertiary education institutions should be required to offer mid-career training courses which are geared to grappling with the emerging developmental issues facing South Africa. Similarly, practitioners (both in the public and private sectors) should be required to attend such courses, in order to retain professional accreditation.
The practicalities of introducing a system of internships, where advanced students and/or new graduates in town and regional planning are channelled into areas which have limited planning capacity for a limited period (18 months–2 years), should be investigated.
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