Palapye Sub-district has been declared a planning area. Informing Heads of Department during the Sub-DDC meeting held in Palapye on Tuesday, Mr Boipuso Marope an urban planner from the

Department of Town and Country Planning said the declaration process would continually be rolled out to cover all districts.He said eventually the whole country would be a planning area as per the new land policy.
 

Mr Marope said this implied that no developments and changes of land use shall take place within the entire planning areas without permission granted by the responsible authority or physicalplanning committee.
 

Submission of plans for approval, he said was done in order to ensure adherence to the development plans, ensure safe developments by guiding location of developments on the plot and also to economise on resources.

“All applications for planning permission would have to be accompanied by a plan or drawing sufficient to identify the land to which the application relates and by such information as may be necessary to describe the proposed development.”

He said initially the practice had been that of declaring individual

Mogoditshane Sub- land Board secretary, Mr Anthony Bashingi (centre) during a consultative meeting with Mogoditshane residents on Thursday. Mr Bashingi said they were concerned by low turn out of people who came to register their plots. He also said they were still investigating over 400 land cases hence the delay in plot allocation in the area. Photo: Gaonyadiwe Kediseng

settlements or group of settlements as planning areas, leading to gaps in the management of land since some areas tended to be left out when determining the boundary of the planning areas.

He said this proved to be inefficient as developments outside these planning areas were not monitored effectively, resulting in construction of buildings which were not structurally sound, illegal changes of land use and inadequate plot accesses.

He said due to this, his ministry shifted the focus in approach to declare sub-districts as planning areas including Palapye.

For his part senior assistant council Secretary Mr Lucky Maoto welcomed this new approach of declaring Palapye a planning area.

He said Palapye was rapidly transforming into a township hence a need for the locals and the business community to construct buildings that were structurally sound.

Mr Maoto further said it was high time Palapye was declared a township to enable the local authority to collect rates.

He said currently businesses in Palapye were operating freely without being charged any rates, adding that the rates would help the council increase revenue in their coffers. ENDS