The department of urban management aims to cut the time it takes to approve most zoning and building plans applications to 24 hours.

Tiaan Ehlers, the director of Development Management in the department, promises to speed up the processing of applications

ROPERTY developers will no longer have to wait ages for their zoning and building plans to be approved, thanks to a new service approach by the City's department of urban management that will drastically improve turnaround times for approving building applications.

Under the new development, the department will approve 60 percent of building applications within 24 hours and up to 70 percent of applications within 28 days, according to Tiaan Ehlers, the director in the department.

"We have been severely criticised by the public over the time the department takes to approve applications. We hope this new approach will benefit applicants and speed up our efforts to develop the city."

Previously, the department only finalised 35 percent of all building plans submissions within 28 days, because applications were incomplete and exceeded development parameters, Ehlers said. "Municipal entities also had to comment on the applications and this delayed the process."

The department also plans to approve applications for rezoning and for establishing township within six months. Previously, it would take a year to approve rezonings and township establishments.

Another improvement is a new service approach, which will kick in when the new, R23-million Metro Link Centre opens in September. The new centre, which will reflect a more professional and customer friendly environment, will also reduce the need for members of the public to navigate the Metro Centre building to place applications.

Experts will be deployed in the new building at the submission stage to advise applicants what is required to achieve 24-hour approval. Immediate approval will be granted to applicants who meet all the necessary requirements.

Ehlers said the department was also creating an integrated town-planning scheme in place of the old, fragmented scheme, which he described as irrelevant. The purpose of the consolidated scheme was to find an equitable way of introducing a uniform land use management mechanism in the city.

"The new scheme will see one system being introduced for the whole city that operates the same way and eliminates administrative confusion and complexity. It will see, for example, informal trading in the city being recognised as an essential component in the town planning process."