Johannesburg - The City of Joburg has welcomed the approval of two key draft policies that are set to improve and transform development.
The draft Green Building Policy: New Buildings, and draft Development Contributions Policy will each undergo a public participation process to offer members of the public an opportunity to engage with the documents and submit their comments or input.
Member of the mayoral committee (MMC) for development planning Lawrence Khoza urged residents and stakeholders to familiarise themselves and engage with the draft policies.
“The public participation process is important, in that it gives members of the public a voice to raise their concerns throughout the policy formulation process,” he said.
The Green Building Policy forms part of the city’s objective to achieve low-to-net zero carbon performance for all new buildings in the city by 2030 and 100% buildings by 2050.
“This policy will guide the development of green, low-energy consuming buildings within the city powered by cleaner and renewable energy sources.
“It is aimed at promoting resource efficiency and sets mandatory and voluntary high-performance standards for all new buildings within Joburg’s built environment, on a pathway towards a low carbon future in line with our carbon neutrality goals within the buildings and energy sector by 2050,” said the MMC.
The second draft is the Development Contributions Policy which seeks to simplify the development contributions process, which involves contributions by new developers to the city’s infrastructure in projects they are involved in, with the intention to speed up the rate of development by providing greater clarity around an existing capital funding instrument, for the timely provision of essential bulk infrastructure required to service the needs of new developments.
“It is further intended to speed up the rate of development by providing greater clarity around an existing capital funding instruments that allow for the timely provision of essential bulk infrastructure required to service the needs of new developments which include water, sanitation, electricity, municipal roads, stormwater and transport,” said the MMC.
Development contributions are a once-off charge levied by a municipality on the landowner, as a condition for approving land development application. They are levied to cover the costs incurred by the municipality when installing new infrastructure or upgrading an existing infrastructure.
The city has developed a “progressive calculator” for calculating development contributions which will be readily available to the public on the city’s development planning e-service platform.
Once available, details of the public participation process of the draft policies will be shared with members of the public.
The Star