Lesedi Local Municipality launches first tribunal
On June 9, the Lesedi MPT sat for the first time to consider applications referred to it.
HEIDELBERG – Lebohang Radebe, town planner MISA (GP), said in a media release that the Lesedi Local Municipality (LMM) has finalised its statutory obligations to comply with the provisions of the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act (SPLUMA) (Act 16 of 2013) and its accompanying regulations.
SPLUMA provides that each municipality is responsible for municipal spatial planning and land use management within its jurisdiction. This requires a municipality to make administrative decisions, which are lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair.
To undertake this responsibility, municipalities are required to formulate municipal spatial development frameworks, development of principles guiding spatial planning, land-use management and land development, management of land use through Land-Use Schemes (LUS), and formulating procedures and processes for the preparations, submission and consideration of land development applications together with provincial planning legislation and municipal planning by-laws.
As a result, Lesedi has adopted its spatial planning and land-use management by-laws, land-use management scheme and the municipal planning tribunal. The MSDF 2016, which is SPLUMA compliant, will be reviewed in this current financial year, and the process of digitisation is presently underway.
On June 9, the Lesedi MPT sat for the first time to consider applications referred to it.
This milestone is one of the many achievements emanating from the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent and Lesedi collaborative efforts. MISA facilitated the process of establishing the MPT in Lesedi and had to employ innovative practices for capacity-building in the municipality.
Lesedi is confronted by many challenges related to limited resources; hence, the municipality had not budgeted to source members to form part of the Lesedi MPT. The lack of resources delayed the process of appointing members to serve in the Lesedi MPT. MISA strategically guided Lesedi to consider expertise within the municipality and from other key stakeholders who are directly and indirectly employed by the government to form part of its MPT.
This approach was considered to relieve the municipality from more financial difficulties.
The identified officials of the Lesedi MPT are highly experienced public entity, provincial and municipal professionals from spatial and land-use management, infrastructure planning and development, building and architecture, social and community development and finance sectors.
The members are supported by a panel of experts from a variety of sectors facilitated by MISA, in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development and the Gauteng Office of the Premier.
The members of the MPT will be governed by a strict code of conduct and ready to serve the local community.
For more information, contact the executive manager of the Department of LED and Planning at Sbusiso.dlamini@lesedi.gov.za
