On 24 January 2025, I spoke at the extended Property Development Forum (PDF) meeting held at Centurion Council Chamber. The purpose of the meeting was to engage with property developers, present some of the City’s newly launched tools and discuss processes being piloted to enhance the ability of businesses to do business in Tshwane, as well as for the forum to share the challenges they are experiencing in engaging with the City of Tshwane.
The PDF is a critical stakeholder of the City of Tshwane and is essential to the efforts of revitalising the economy. More than 60 property industry representatives attended the meeting to engage with us on these critical matters.
The City’s new leadership, in place since October 2024 under the Executive Mayor, Cllr Nasiphi Moya, and Deputy Mayor, Cllr Eugene Modise, has prioritised six key objectives, including fiscal stability, economic development and job creation, infrastructure investment, by-law enforcement and inner-city rejuvenation, community engagement, taking services to the people and responsive public services.
At the forum, the City gave a presentation on the interventions recently launched or under development to help achieve these priority objectives.
Our New Applications Processing System (NAPS) is an online system that enables developers to lodge their applications for building plans directly to the e-Tshwane portal (www.e-tshwane.co.za). A pilot of the system was launched for Regions 1 and 4 in December 2024. This service is going to be expanded soon to incorporate more development application types and allow applicants to track review progress. The increasing automation of the back end of our processing systems aims to improve transparency and reduce manual interventions.
Also discussed were the City of Tshwane Strategic Investment Committee, the Investment Incentives Toolkit, the approaches to the management of derelict buildings and the plans to encourage the private sector to partner with the City to develop land parcels for economic growth.
The Investment Incentive Toolkit is designed to enhance the attractiveness of Tshwane for potential investors to attract new investors while promoting further investment of businesses already within the city.
The Strategic Investment Committee was established to fast-track strategic urban development and to address neglected infrastructure in our city. Investment in critical infrastructure in constrained areas of the metro will unlock many areas for further development.
I assured the PDF that we are committed to improving the efficiency of our systems and processes, and was happy to receive feedback that some early signs of our new administration’s shift in focus are already being seen.
Fewer complaints regarding planning submissions are reportedly being received. Members of the PDF noted some improvements from the user perspective and members of the public have indicated that they are noticing some early visible improvements in street cleanliness and road conditions in the Pretoria CBD.
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