It is fairly well understood how an incremental settlement approach to addressing South Africa’s housing and settlement needs works, but there is less understanding however for how an incremental settlement approach could work in the context of tenure security.
For a more in depth look at a new approach to Land Records, click here to read the full Learning Brief.
Thank you for this interesting read. I agree on the need for innovative and incremental approaches to land tenure reform in South Africa. The current systems and approach are clearly not able to facilitate the recording of diverse Land rights types.
One minor correction with important ramifications: the formal cadastre is not surveyed to mm precision as is claimed in the article. The formal cadastre is precise to 3-5cm in urban areas. Using handheld GPS or digitising off aerial photos will yield a precision in the range of 2-5 metres or worse. That’s a big difference, especially for urban areas. Before adopting a new Land rights system, serious consideration needs to be given to positional accuracy and how the new system interfaces with the existing system.
Thanks Simon for taking the time to respond to our article. Your points about position accuracy of boundaries (especially in urban areas) and interfacing the proposed new land records system with the existing land registration system are very valid. Let us know if you have any thoughts on how these issues can be addressed. We need to work through these type of ‘details’ if the new land records system is to become a reality. Ronald