Urban LandMark

Comments on Land Use Management Bill [B27-2008]

National Assembly: Portfolio Committee for Agriculture & Land

Affairs31 July 2008

Introducing Urban LandMark

Funding and institutional home

• Funded by UK government’s Department for International Development (DfID)

• Part of the Finmark Trust stable (www.finmarktrust.org.za)

• Emerged from Finmark Trust’s Township Residential Property Markets (‘TPRM’) study

goal: what we want to achieve

to improve access to well-located urban land (in South Africa)

by making markets work for the poor and improving governance systems

thus giving meaning and effect to the right to land

mission: how we intend to achieve our goal

By creating a place for engagement and discovery, and establishing:

– a dependable empirical information base– a clear advocacy position on M(UL)MW4P– as the basis for policy dialogue and change

who are our stakeholders?

ULM

Government

Private SectorDonors/iNGOs

Civil societyUrbanSectorNetwork

Federationof theUrban Poor

Landless People’sMovement

LEAP

IsandlaInstitute

Universities

South AfricanProperty OwnersAssociation

Banking Associationof SA

ProfessionalInstitutes

Habitat forHumanity

SA CitiesNetwork

DFID

UN Habitat

CitiesAlliance/WorldBank

FordFoundation

Treasury Land Affairs

Housing

Provincial &Local Govt

Presidency

Transport

HSRC/ CSIRDBSA/ SACN

Urban LandMark concerns with the Land

Use Mangement Bill

The need for national land use management legislation

National legislation is critically important for the redress of apartheid spatial injustices as well as for the development of efficient and sustainable human settlements in which all citizens are able to benefit from good land use planning.

The question is: will the current LUMB do this?

More, not less uncertainty

• The LUMB adds another layer of legislation to the existing duplicative and discriminatory legislative framework

• If there is a grand plan for how the LUMB will work in relation to the provincial Ordinances, the BCDA regulations and the Less Formal Township Establishment Act it has not been shared.

• In practise now every land development approval process will be governed by two pieces of legislation, which– Will require constant cross-referencing;– creates potential for unintended consequences; and– Opens loopholes for legal challenge

Norms & standards

• These are needed now• They must provide, inter alia:

– uniformity on procedures for quicker approval processes (e.g. as are found in the Development Facilitation Act); as well as

– guidance on how to unravel the legal complexity of inherited planning legislation

Towns & cities in which all South Africans can thrive and prosper requires innovative planning : and the LUMB does not provide that

The DFA: throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

• Recent case in the WLD has upheld the power of the DFA tribunals (CoJ v GDT and others, 2007)

• The DFA introduced innovation and still provides an invaluable route for approvals in both the commercial and ‘developmental’ sectors

• Repealing the DFA will leave serious gaps, especially in some provinces

What’s needed

• Clarity as to which sphere makes which decisions

• Clarity as to the scrapping of apartheid land development & planning legislation and a transition path

• Clarity as to relationship between planning & environmental approvals

• Mechanisms for fast-tracking projects

We are unfortunately not persuaded that the LUMB meets these needs

Moving forward

• Urban LandMark, with the Second Economy Strategy Project, is commissioning a Regulatory Impact Assessment (‘RIA’) of the LUMB, which will run August to September 2008

• Urban LandMark is committed to providing whatever assistance may be requested to reconceptualise and redraft the LUMB: we have budget and capacity to work together (at the least the RIA report will be helpful, we think)

Urban LandMark contact details

• Director: Dr Mark Napier• mark@urbanlandmark.org.za• Website: www.urbanlandmark.org.za• Phone 012 342 7636