10 Lessons - Part 2 - Property Zoning
Hi, and welcome back to part 2 in our 10 part article series on the 10 things I have learnt about property development, while navigating construction and property investing in South Africa.
This short article is by no means a full explanation of property zoning, but is an overview of why understanding the zoning on a property is important for a property developer or investor.
Property Zoning is undertaken by a municipality to allocate specific types of land use within certain zones of development or activity. Think of how a town is laid out, with suburbs in one area and industrial works in another. Each property falls within a selected zone of development, and has regulations applied as is relevant to the zoning allowance.
As briefly stated above, each suburb or township, town or city and metropolitan area, has its own set of rules around land use and the types of development they will allow in certain areas, and Durban is different to Johannesburg, and both of them are different to Cape Town. It is best to check the Land use scheme for your area, if you are planning a big and bold development. .
For our first lesson we spoke about paperwork being very important to your due diligence process and, that one of the pieces of paper to have is a zoning certificate. The municipality will issue a Zoning Certificate and SG Diagram for the property as per the respective development zone, they tell you the purpose for which the property may be used, the position of building lines and servitudes, height you may build to, ground coverage and Floor Area Ratio (FAR). These certificates will tell you about what the rights and development potential are for your specific property. So what does that mean. It means that you will know if you can build a double story block of townhouses, or a four story apartment block. You will know if you can legally have those extra units and still have enough parking and without building over the property boundaries or covering too much of the ground area.
If we consider a property not having approved building plans, and to answer a question of if the development would have been approved in terms of the land use scheme. The first department that gets to appraise plans is Town Planning. They will check the plans in terms of the current zoning on the property and what is allowed in terms of land use. To follow on with the example, for additional units on the property without plans, it is possible that the zoning would need to be adjusted on the property so as to allow for the increased occupation density planned for the property with the additional townhouse units. Should the property not have the correct zoning in place you would have to get a rezoning done, and that process extends your property development project by many, many months and increases the development costs through approval and professional fees to get the approvals passed.
There you have it, part 2 of the 10 lessons I have learnt about developing property through being a project manager. I hope that you have gained some insight from this article that will help you to make more informed decisions on your next building project.
Be sure and keep an eye out for my next articles on the remaining lessons, and leave a comment with any questions or topics you would most like to hear about next. You can also sign up to our mailing list and receive our articles direct in your inbox so you never have to miss an issue.