Installation of equipment to properties may soon cost George citizens between R400 and R2 500 if the bill gets approved. l JEFFREY ABRAHAMS
Cape Town – The newly proposed building by-law law by the George Local Municipality was met with disdain as ratepayers said it was just another money-making scheme.
The municipality has opened a public participation process, encouraging citizens to have a say prior to the approval.
The by-law will require them to seek permission and pay a fee to have equipment attached outside their properties. According to the by-law. the fee may vary between R400 to R2 000 depending on quality, size and other factors.
Lauren Waring, director of Human Settlements, Planning and Development and Property Management in the George Municipality, said it aimed to promote compliance and addressed how a developer could comply with the National Building Regulations.
This was particularly to ensure due diligence was followed to safeguard the health and safety of the property owners, neighbouring property owners and parties that may be exposed to works executed on any property, whether private or public.
"It is aimed at articulating existing rules concerning the processes and practices that relate to construction, otherwise not addressed in the Act and seeks to eliminate ambiguity.
“The need for such elaboration is brought on mostly by complaints related to illegal works and the number of occurrences where the municipality must refer building plan applications back to the applicant to ensure the required information is duly captured and reflective of what is developed on the property.
“George is not the first to implement a by-law of this nature. There are tariffs in place for all construction-related authorisations.
"The occurrence of illegal construction on a property is often also the cause of delay in the process of the sale of a property. Illegal construction of any nature is not taken lightly as each action is regarded as a risk to health and safety, the environment or municipal infrastructure until confirmed otherwise," Waring explained.
However, residents are not taking it lying down.
Juan Barnard, the chairperson of the George Ratepayers Association, said they ran a series of polls on the ratepayers WhatsApp group and realised that the new building by-law aimed to govern and regulate the simplest additions to buildings, such as generators, solar panels, garden sheds and water tanks. He said their members found said this was unacceptable and over-regulating.
"Our polls indicated that the majority of ratepayers do not know how to take part in a public participation process and also don’t know where to find these by-laws. There are quite a few by-laws out at the moment, regulating electricity, the keeping of dogs and other animals, buildings and it is just too much for citizens to take knowledge of and to understand.
"This by-law is going to criminalise a lot of normal actions of home owners purely because they don’t know about the details they need to follow to get changes to be approved or have the funds to apply. Home owners will therefore have to pay for all these applications and those rates and tariffs is again regulated in a separate by-law," said Barnard.
In a joint statement, the Hoekwil Ratepayers and Residents Association, and Wilderness Ratepayers Association said the costs to the numerous applicants would far outweigh any benefit the municipality might find from having plans submitted for these activities.
It is not clear why the municipality is following this path rather than placing the onus on the property owner to comply with building regulations.
The cost of enforcement for the occasional transgression would surely be less than the cost of the additional staff required to handle these applications, as well as the long term-costs of necessary IT and physical storage facilities for the applications. The cost of compliance for residents would be totally out of reach for many common activities.
Waring said the public is welcome to submit any comments. "Once all comments have been received, they will be considered and thereafter, the final by-law will be submitted to council for approval or not."