David Christianson

IT MAY be coincidence that approval for Tongaat Hulett’s flagship Umhlanga Triangle development came through exactly 96 days after KwaZulu Natal premier Sbu Ndebele promised planning bottlenecks would be “finalised within a maximum period of three months”.

But the premier’s intervention has addressed only one element in a highly stressed system and the province is losing out as developments worth billions struggle to get off the ground.

There have been improvements but obstacles to rezoning and planning permission in the province are a major headache for property developers.

“It’s a capacity issue,” says Tongaat Hulett CEO Peter Staude.

“There has been substantial economic development around eThekwini, which has placed the entire system … under pressure,” he says.

In June, when Staude complained about administrative delays, especially those associated with the rezoning of formerly agricultural land, the sugar giant held only 176ha of rezoned land, compared to the 250ha it likes to maintain as a base figure.

Although Ndebele implied that delays were primarily the fault of the province’s environmental affairs and tourism department, practitioners say this is only part of the problem.

Tongaat Hulett Properties director Rory Wilkinson says the problem with environmental impact assessments (EIAs) is no longer provincial approvals, “it’s the fact that other departments take so long to comment”.

He singled out the eThekwini metro and provincial conservation authority Ezemvelo Wildlife as especially slow.

Local land surveyor Jan Welter agrees that the process has slowed. “Simple permissions that took two to three months to achieve 10 years ago take at least six months now,” he says.

Welter says it is difficult to tell whether there is a bottleneck at a single specific point. “There are a lot of interrelated things that have to happen. If there is a capacity breakdown somewhere in the system, it can result in delays elsewhere,” he says.

A Pietermaritzburg town planner — who requested anonymity — says the issue is simply a matter of capacity.

“There are good people in both the local authorities and province. The problem is that they simply have too much to deal with.

“A very small number of individuals have simultaneously to deal with the public, go out to site, get the paperwork sorted out, interact with the politicians. In the local municipality, one or two people are trying to do the jobs of 15,” he says.

The situation is not improved by the moratorium on hiring, promotions and wage increases within province, he says.

Welter argues that these are only red tape issues in so far as there is a mismatch between available capacity and the range of tasks to be performed.

“Some of the regulations have been simplified, especially related to EIAs,” he says.

Behind all this is “a flood of legislation and consequent regulations,” Welter says.

“The skills and experience to man all the regulatory bodies is simply not there.”

The problem is especially pointed when it comes to rezoning agricultural land — precisely the issue confronting big developers like Tongaat Hulett and the eLan Group, says Welter.

“You need to get permission from a whole range of departments, from agriculture to environmental affairs and perhaps even transport.”

The agriculture department has an explicit mandate to protect viable agricultural land and is especially slow to grant permissions, he says.

“I try to avoid agricultural conversion work if possible. It’s exhausting,” says Welter.

Alongside rezoning, developers have to engage with local authorities especially over service provision.

Within the municipality, a planning proposal has to circulate to all departments — water, sewerage, electricity — so they can assess the implications of the extra demand on the system.

The system has undoubtedly improved recently. Welter says that approvals that now take six months took as long as eight or nine months two years ago.

“But things still take too long”, Welter says. “Remember that for developers, time is money. If you need to rezone agricultural land, it’ll cost you at least a year, probably 18 months.”

An EIA cannot usually be conducted in three months, because it most often requires assessment of a full growing season, among other things, so Ndebele’s promise is confusing to developers, says Wilkinson.

“We can’t afford to be delayed by a single incompetent department or agency. They should be given a fixed time period to object. If they fail to act in any way, that should be deemed equivalent of approval,” he says.

Business Day

Publisher: I-Net Bridge
Source: I-Net Bridge