Tshwane metro central planning and development dept without offices for over three months

The Tshwane municipality central planning and development department has been without offices for over three months. This has become a nightmare for property developers in the capital city.

The department vacated its offices in Isivuno Building, Pretoria CBD mid-December, last year due to the building not complying with occupational health and safety regulations minimum standards.

The department was meant to move to the Middestad building also in the CBD. Months later, the department in the CBD office is still not operational. Hundreds of files, consisting of property planning and development applications, have been packed in boxes over the past few months as about 125 employees of the department have been without offices.

Some of these staff do not have not access to working equipment such as files and IT equipment at their homes. Some staff from Isivuno Offices were working at regional offices. About three out of eight regional offices have been functional.

Regions 2, 3 (Central), 5, 6 and 7 [these consist of east, north and Moot of the Pretoria areas] had not been functional since mid-December.

Pretoria Institute for Architecture (PIA) executive officer Mauneen van Wyk described the move as “a complete management disaster”.

She said the department being without offices was creating massive backlogs in building plan approvals and issuing of occupancy certificates.

“New developments in Tshwane have and will now be adversely affected with massive costs to developers and homeowners which can’t be recouped,” she said.

“All building files have not been filed in the new offices in Middestad building for access by staff.”

Van Wyk said property developers were in dire straits without getting plans approved efficiently or having access to previously approved plans.

She said the property developers struggled with backlog issues before the Covid-19 outbreak hit. With the move, “the situation has progressively become worse”.

“Property developers and the public alike are at their wits’ end.

“Our members are suffering financially because they simply can’t deliver for clients, but so does the city. Professionals have lost their livelihoods; developers are looking outside of Tshwane to develop; and members of the public are unable to build, sell or renovate their properties,” she said.

“We are aware for instance that the total value of approvals for smaller projects has declined from more than R250-million in 2016 to a mere R25-million approved in the last financial year.

“This decline in the approvals is not due to a decline in the market. The problem is that many of these projects have now been awaiting approval for over two years.”

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Tshwane spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said the move was due to delays in building occupancy certificates for the new offices.

“It is hoped that by the end of March 2022, the process will be concluded and various departments including city planning will be relocated to the newly acquired Middestad building,” Mashigo said.

Mashigo conceded that the department was faced with a backlog.

“We must accede that there is a backlog. It is being attended to and moving to the Middestad building will also alleviate the pressure and backlog,” he said.

In a letter to the municipality, South African Association of Consulting Professional Planners (SAACPP), Peter Dacomb described the metro’s move as “clearly ill-informed and premature”.

“Our member firms report that long-standing clients are threatening legal action (also against their appointed consultants), given the losses suffered as a result of the failures on the part of the municipality to bring about a solution (even be it temporary) to ensure an acceptable measure of continuity,” the letter read.

“There are rumours afloat that the Middestad building [new offices] may be challenged by several aspects including questionable structural integrity, inadequate internal infrastructure (data lines, etc.), inappropriate ergonomic planning and problematic furniture, parking problems, etc.”

Some of the property developers said they were suffering from growing bank loans for the projects while their projects were at a standstill.

A Pretoria resident, who requested not to be named, said she attained a mortgage loan but could not proceed with home-building since plans filed in April 2021 have yet to be approved by the department. She showed Rekord an application file with her lawyers which showed that the application was pending since April 2021.

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