PDA Forum Presentation By Mr. Peter Newmarch (Land Surveyor)

PDA Application costs and problems from the applicants perspective with possible solutions What do we mean ? Costs ? Problems ? Costs : We do not mean application or advertising costs. We mean the professional time the applicant must pay for to package the application. We mean the costs of delays if timeframes are not followed.

Problems : Lack of Delegations. Lack of Capacity. Lack of Records. Lack of clear requirements by the municipality. Access to information. Availability of decision makers. Lack of PDA understanding (councillors, municipal officials) Lack of integration between Municipal Departments

Rates Town Planner Hourly Rate (Consulting) R 1200 / hr ( Published 2008 ) Land Surveyor Hourly Rate (Consulting) R 1310 / hr ( Unpublished 2009 ) (one rarely gets these rates! In Practice its much less) Ethekwini – Single subdivision – Under Ordinance R – R Under PDA (estimated) R – R ConsolidationUnder Ordinance Virtually Zero Under PDA (estimated) R – R (one must still add the cost of the Diagram and registration and transfer fees) Result : People will just do things anyway and not bother with formal process – its already happening. Its simply people : TIME = MONEY, if the professional has to comply with many things and information is not readily available, the applicant simply pays more.

Consequences The Gap between Poor and Rich widens even further. Rich people have the money to comply and Poor people don’t. In some cases, the cost is more than the Land ! Poor people are already refusing to follow the process because of the professional costs. Loss of Business to other provinces Loss of Professionals (a distinct possibility).

Solutions (simple) Create and Use your websites to publish information, such as general requirements for consolidations / subdivisions contact details of delegated officials scheme details – how to find it, where to get copies, cost of copies etc... engineering information – what exists, where who and how to get it, IDP's and other planning documents Be reasonable in your planning requirements Don’t ask the applicant for a copy of the scheme – you should already have it ! Is 1m contours really necessary ? Why not 2m in Urban and 5m or 10m in Rural? Does one really need a percolation test for a subdivision of 2 Ha ? Start working digitally – why cannot the application be ed ? Practitioners would probably gladly assist in guiding the process – just ask Future Possibilities ? Applicant perhaps circulates ? (costs positives and costs negatives) Applications in Parallel ?