ETHEKWINI Municipality’s Development Planning Department announced yesterday (Tuesday, 14 October) that two public meetings will be held tonight (Wednesday, 16 October) and Thursday, 17 October to discuss changes to the city’s planning schemes.
There will be a public meeting at the Queensburgh Civic Hall at the intersection of Main Road and St Augistine’s Road from 3pm to 8pm tonight (Wednesday, 15 October) and another from 4pm to 8pm on Thursday, 16 October at the Greenwood Park Community Hall, 726 Chris Hani Road, Durban North.
The municipality has over the past three years consolidated its 30 planning schemes into five schemes. While the schemes for the South, North, Inner West and Outer West regions have gone through a similar process and have been adopted, it is now the turn of the planning scheme applicable to the areas that fell under the old Durban Districts.
According to the municipality, the current Durban Scheme has been reworked and translated into a more user friendly scheme, while at the same time being re-modelled to conform with the remaining planning schemes in the city.
“Thus it is the intention to replace the existing planning scheme with the proposed new set of regulations and maps,” said head of communications, Tozi Mthethwa.
The acting head of the Development Planning, Environment and Management Unit, Lihle Phewa said the current Durban Scheme Regulations is about 60 years old and has served its purpose, however, she added its performance needed to be enhanced so as to facilitate and promote development of the city by offering a wider range of land use management tools that will achieve the city’s strategies of quality environments, densification and so on.
The scheme will be open for comment for a maximum of 30 days from 10 October to 10 November and written comments/submissions can also be forwarded to Lekha Allopi, Land Use Management Projects, Room 201, City Engineers Building, 166 K.E Masinga Rd, Durban, 4000 or emailed to Lekha.Allopi@durban.gov.za or to Malcolm S Moonsamy at the same address, or by e-mail to Malcolm.Moonsamy@durban.gov.za, or by fax to 031 311 7938.
Once all comments and inputs have been collated and considered, the scheme will be taken before the council for adoption.
A copy of the scheme document, together with associated maps, will be available for viewing and comment from 10 October at eThekwini Municipal offices, City Engineers Building, 166 KE Masinga Road, Durban from 8am to 3pm.
In addition, a workshop for focus groups, comprising members of the built environment will be held on Tuesday, 28 October between 9am and 1pm.
