Cape Town - The provincial government wants to amend the Land Use Planning Act (Lupa) to allow for the use of electronic communications such as email and WhatsApp messages, as opposed to municipalities physically delivering notifications involving land.
The Environmental Affairs and Development Planning Department said it has found the minimum requirement excessively restrictive. The department explained municipalities mostly used registered post to comply and this was costly and often ineffective
During a briefing to the standing committee on environmental affairs and development planning, development management director Kobus Munro said: “The use of other, modern, economical and more effective methods of direct notification is currently not permitted by Lupa. This problem was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and national lockdown.
“There are already a number of municipalities such as the City of Cape Town that are using WhatsApp to communicate with all the residents in their municipalities and it is working quite effectively.”
Committee member Deidre Baartman from the DA said: “My suggestion to the department is that they should do an electronic roadshow to assist municipalities to understand the specific requirements in the Electronic Transactions and Communications Act.”
Good MPL Brett Herron said: “I’d like to caution that we look at how wide electronic communication is. Does it include Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp? I think this needs to be managed in a way that we can be assured that the recipients of those notices in fact receive them and cannot deny or later say that they didn’t receive notification.”
Committee chairperson Andricus van der Westhuizen asked: “How important is it for a municipality to be able to prove that it has served a notice or that it has tried to serve a notice on each person whose rights will be affected?”
Munro responded: “Whether you can prove communication is in fact the crux of the matter. That is very important, and even with the electronic communication methods that will now be used, you must show that you have done that and have proof. This is dealt with in the Electronic Communications Act.
“Communication via media notification and provincial government gazette remains and will still be used as a means of communication, like a shotgun notification to let the whole community know.”
Cape Argus