Stakeholders in the mining industry will have the opportunity to be informed about impending changes in land use management systems and the establishment of new land development areas pertaining to mining activities in a workshop on Impending Changes in Land Use Planning Legislation and Practices on 27 March.

The workshop will be hosted by the Bushveld Igneous Complex Mining Forum at the CSIR in Pretoria and attended by members of the BIC Mining Forum, mining legal practitioners, housing professionals, professional planning consultants, mining survey and spatial planning practitioners, and mining project, programme and portfolio managers.

Included will be representatives from mining companies Anglo American and Impala Platinum; infrastructure development company Bigen Africa; and planners Maxim Planning Solutions and Pieterse Du Toit & Associates.

“Under apartheid”, land development planning in the four provinces, the ten homelands and the ‘group area’ racial zones fell under many different laws, ordinances, procedures and regulations. The Judgment of the Constitutional Court in the matter of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality versus the Gauteng Development Tribunal and others provided a final deadline for Planning Legislation at National and Provincial levels to be dealt with.

In response, the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act, 2013 [SPLUMA] was promulgated during the second half of 2013.  The provincial acts on Spatial Planning and Land Use Management are to be in accordance with the provisions of the National SPLUMA. The drafting of legislation for various provinces is underway.

Some recent developments hold significance for the mining industry:

• Mining companies have been obligated to procure land use zoning rights for land holdings for which mining rights have been granted in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act of 2002, through the Constitutional Court Judgment in the matter of MaccSand vs City of Cape Town. This was previously not required.

• Since the termination of ownership of mineral rights, the need exists to accommodate this land use in new planning and land use legislation.

• Provincial legislation on spatial planning and land use management is now to be drafted in accordance with the National Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act of 2013. Disconcertingly, none of the existing planning laws accommodate the unique circumstances of mining in South Africa.

• Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal have already taken steps to bring about provincial legislation, but this may have to be revisited to agree with the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act once it is enacted in an official manner. 

The workshop offers the mining industry the opportunity to collectively formulate a position that could ensure that mining activities are favourably accommodated in new national and provincial land use planning legislation.  The mining industry would do well to make inputs into the drafting of new regulations for the implementation of this act, and the drafting of spatial planning and land use management legislation on a provincial level. This, in turn, should guide local municipalities in reviewing and drafting their own land use schemes. The urgency of this matter is evident since, in most of the cases, the drafting of legislation is quite advanced.

The workshop is aimed at enabling the mining industry to:

• Contribute towards the knowledge and understanding of and to illuminate the roles and responsibilities of all interested and affected parties.
• Identify threats to the establishment of new mining operations, application process and cost of compliance associated with existing mining operations.
• Establish the impact of the new National Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act and provincial legislation under development on the mining sector.
• Determine the opportunity for the mining industry with regard to future spatial planning and land use legislation.
• Obtain consensus from the mining industry with regard to mitigation measures to be taken.
• Align planning processes and, in turn, minimise delays and other procedural risks.
• Ensure clarity on the role of the mining industry in the process.

Participants will be informed about rezoning processes and be able to address critical issues, reducing the risk for the mining sector by influencing the outcome of planning and land use management regulations on a national, provincial and eventually a local level, through a coherent and integrated submission. Unrealistic expectations from local municipalities in terms of the process and taxation of land can be prevented and cautionary measures can be included in regulations so as to conserve land with mining potential for future exploration.

The keynote speakers at the workshop will be Dr Iraj Abedian, Chief Executive Officer of Pan-African Capital Holdings, Sunday Ogunronbi, Department of Rural Development and Land Reform; Rita Spalding of Webber Wentzel Inc, Peter Dacomb of South African Association for Consulting Professional Planners and Bertus Bierman, Chair of BIC Mining Forum.

For more information on this workshop, please contact Annette van Zyl on 012 – 8428869 or send an e-mail to info@landusemanage.co.za

www.landusemanage.co.za