PROJECT NECESSITY

Positive, creative planning is now more necessary than ever. Positive planning or formalisation, for individual or communal title, is necessary for a number of reasons.

1. Formalisation will protect the rights of people. Once people gain access to land they obtain certain rights and obligations. It is necessary to manage change (settlements) in such a way that those rights and obligations are respected.

2. Individuals within communities are demanding stronger individual rights both in order to be able to access state housing subsidies and loans and because, in some areas, they complain of human rights abuse by land allocators.

3. Formalisation will protect natural systems. Natural systems have their own operational requirements which must be respected if long-term sustainable human development is to be achieved and if large-scale environmental degradation is to be avoided or at least minimised.

4. Formalisation opens the doors for all spheres of government to achieve a higher quality of service delivery.

5. The provision of tenure security and tenure reform to the occupants of nominally state-owned land are crucial.

   Consider the following:

   The 1997 White Paper on Land Reform sets out the principles of tenure reform as:
   

   Tenure reform must move towards rights and away from permits. This entails a commitment to the transformation of all ..... 'subservient forms of land rights into legally enforceable rights to land (DLA 1997 a:60)

   It also states that:
   

   Tenure reform processes must recognise and accommodate the de facto vested rights which exist on the ground ... (including).... interests which have come to exist without formal legal recognition (DLA 1997 a:61)

   The Constitution states:
   

   25(6) A person or community whose tenure of land is legally insecure as the result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices is entitled to the extent provided by an Act of Parliament, either to tenure which is legally secure or to comparable redress.

6. Owning land improves the way in which land and housing can be used as an economic asset to, for example, secure loans as well as to give access to subsidies and will improve marketability.

7. Informal settlements are often unstable, some reasons being:
   • informal systems provide access to land and regulate its disposal;
   • criminal elements dependent on the invisibility and untraceability are provided by the informal settlement with vested interests in the status quo;
   • weak governance regulating entry; and
   • coercive shacklordism and control over social existence and informal property.

   Formalisation ensures good governance and administration and will therefore be beneficial to stabilise these unstable Informal settlements.

8. Women are often vulnerable in informal settlements, especially single women with young children, and may often only obtain residence under 'clientship arrangements' - which is highly prejudicial. The rights enquiry in the formalisation process caters for the rights of woman.

9. The worst environmental and health conditions and natural resource degradation occurs around informal settlements, where people have few assets and minimal control over their surroundings. Tenure reform allows people more control over their lives and their environment, and brings settlements within the control of Local Authorities.

10. The constitutional objectives of Local Authorities puts an obligation on them to provide for the occupants of nominally state-owned land. The constitution in terms of Section 152 commits local government to take reasonable measures, within its financial and administrative capacity to achieve the following objectives:
    • to ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner, it is hardly possible to install services sensibly without formalisation;
    • to promote a safe and healthy environment (social environment, physical environment and economic environment);
    • to manage informal settlements' administration, budgeting and planning processes in order to promote social and economic development (Section 153 of the Constitution);
    • to provide democratic and accountable government for local communities;
    • to encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government.

11. Formalisation will increase the effective collection of service charge revenue, property taxation and land administration. Tenure reform will create a framework in which the Local Authority can develop strategies for meeting local needs and promoting the social and economic development of communities.

12. Land parcels in informal settlements are not included in the current cadastre at the Surveyor General and Deeds Office. Local Authorities are therefore confronted by a situation where it has insufficient information to manage land in informal settlements. In such circumstances efficient and effective land management is hardly possible. Formalisation conveys accurate, current and accessible land record data which is essential for a Local Authority to effectively carry out its management of land administration and planning processes.

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