Re-zoning

 Many of us got used to working from home during COVID, with the many benefits that come from this - not having to commute to work, being able to sleep in for those few precious moments, and greater freedom with how we organise our day. This may have sown the seeds of an idea to work from home permanently. 

Home office
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A number of professions have been doing this for decades, such as dentists, tax consultants and other occupations that just require one or two rooms in the house. In South Africa, we have very comprehensive land legislation, with most larger towns and cities having a stringent town planning scheme that dictates what activities you can or cannot carry out on any property. We call this "zoning" and it is associated with a modernist approach to town planning, which sees a separation of activities such as residential, commercial, retail and institutional. If your property is zoned "residential" this will restrict your rights to a certain number of dwellings on the property and will prohibit commercial activity. 

There is usually some provision for compatible uses in a residential area, such as medical rooms and kindergartens, but the city will want to control this so that there is not an over-supply of this activity in any suburb. To manage this, the municipality will list such activities, for which you will require a "consent use" application. This is not required if the area for this activity is less than 20% of the area of all the buildings on the property, so you can usually have a small home-office in the guest room or study without needing planning permission.

Within a residential suburb, some of the sites will be zoned for other compatible uses, such as educational, recreational and religious. These are all uses that would be supported for consent use, for example if all the religious use properties have been sold and your community wants to build a mosque in the area. For this, you would need to check with the development planning department as to whether you would need a re-zoning, or whether a consent use would be sufficient.

If your business is going to take up more than 20% of the floor area, you will need to employ an urban and regional planner or an architect to prepare the documents for your consent use application. She or he will guide you through the process and prepare the necessary documents, such as a Site Development Plan. This SDP will show the area and location of the special use activity, the parking provision and a long schedule of planning information. The process is quite straightforward and should only take a few weeks. The consent use rights are vested in the person who put in the application as owner, so it will fall away when the property is sold. This means, if you are buying a property that has a business already running from it, you should check out whether this is permitted through a consent use or a re-zoning rather than just assuming that you will be able to use the space for a similar function.

A re-zoning is a more complex process, as this results in a change to the title deeds of the property - it is a right that is permanently linked to the stand, so transfers to the new owner when it is sold. Re-zoning is required if the activities on the entire property are different from the zoning for the area, or if you want to develop the property for more units on the site than the zoning provision, such as cluster housing or townhouses in an area that is designated for single household dwellings. You will definitely need an urban and regional planner for a re-zoning, as this is a complex process that requires much engagement with the development planning branch of the municipality and specialist knowledge of the policies and legislation. 

If your plans are for a redevelopment, such as cluster housing, you will also need the services of a land surveyor if you plan to sell off the units on sectional title. The land surveyor will draw up the new title deeds for each of the sections to lodge at the Deeds Registry Office, and will set out the boundaries of each section on the physical site to be sure that each unit is accurately located. 

The process of re-zoning often takes several years, including engagement with the neighbouring property owners and the suburb's residents and ratepayers association. There will usually be a tribunal, chaired by the municipal planner for the area, to ensure that the development does not negatively impact on the amenity of the surrounding properties.