LOCAL CONTEXT
MAP 4: Cliffdale Land Use Scheme Map
3.6 Main Land Use Management Approaches Applied
3.6.1 Environmental management control
(i) The Need for an Environmental Assessment
The Cliffdale/Shongweni/Salem LDP that was prepared highlighted the need for controlled integrated and well-informed development as well as the need to prepare an Environmental Management Plan. In response to the LDP, National and Provincial Legislations such as the National Environmental Management Act &PDA), Local Agenda 21 programme and the D'MOSS Framework Plan, consultants (Kerry Seppings Environmental Management Specialists) were appointed to undertake an environmental assessment of the area. Obviously a comprehensive ecological study of the area would have provided the best basis for such a work. Due to time and budget constraints, it was decided that a vegetation survey and the development of an open space system based on the survey would provide the best
alternative basis for the environmental assessment. Seppings (2000) describes that vegetation is often the most recognised component of an ecosystem and may provide a yardstick by which the rest of the ecosystem components can be measured. In the development context plants are also effective indicators of environmental conditions. Disturbance, induced by both natural and human factors can also be recognised by changes in the plants community.
The environmental assessment was therefore aimed at refining and contributing to the work done by the D'MOSS Framework Plan (1999) with reference to Cliffdale and using the work as a basis to develop an Environmental Management Plan with adequate land use controls for inclusion in the Land Use Scheme. Such controls would ensure that environmentally sensitive areas are protected and managed within the Land Use Scheme. People in semi-rural and rural communities have an empathy and genuine concern for the environment in which they live and an adm irable understanding of the economic potential it holds in terms of a development resource base and eco-tourism destination. The open space system can also provide critically needed economic base in terms of eco-tourism, urban agriculture etc. as such semi-rural and rural areas have the weakest economic base in comparison to urban counterpart areas.
Cliffdale therefore stood to benefit from a unique opportunity where the open space system can be protected by the Land Use Scheme by instituting environmental controls in the formal planning stages to help guide sustainable development in the area.
The information reflected in the assessment was a combination of aerial reconnaissance; fieldwork, consultation with local environmental stakeholders, academic and town planning document reviews and consultation with authorities. The basis of the research and the physical component thereof was the development of an open space system for Cliffdale. The open space system has been presented as a system of functional and partially functional open spaces linked mainly by riparian reserves.
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Seppings (2000) further defined open spaces as spaces that can be urban e.g. parks, sports fields, agricultural, streets, town squares, road reserves, servitudes for services such as electricity transmission lines, dams and private gardens etc. Other land use spaces are natural open spaces. These are areas that contain more terrestrial, freshwater, estuarine and marina ecosystems. Because of Cliffdale's semi-rural status large areas within the area are natural open spaces e.g. grasslands, rivers, dams and geological features etc. Both are important and provide a range of services to the residents. The key to their functioning is their physical connection through a system to ensure that the plants and animals interact in a manner to ensure that diversity of the resource base is maintained in the long term. Hence there was a need to design and manage open space systems.
Essentially as the case study area develops over time, some open spaces will change from natural open space to urban open space.
The key to successful transmission is to ensure that the urban open spaces maintain their ecological function to support the overall functioning of the open space system. This can be achieved by developing adequate land use controls for developed areas.
(ii) Preparation of Environmental Controls
The environmental assessment that was undertaken resulted in categorising the open space areas of Cliffdale into three functional categories: (See Appendix 8)
• Fully Functional ecosystems: large open spaces with a wide range of ecosystem functions providing many services and that can provide ecological support to smaller open spaces. These eco-systems are larger, more ecologically diverse areas that have not been severely disturbed by human activity; they have a full complement of ecosystem functions and can therefore provide major services with regional significance. Due to this ecological diversity and
semi-rural nature of Cliffdale, functional ecosystems were found to be prevalent and must be protected;
• Partially functional ecosystems: ecosystems that have been disturbed by the built environment but provide important connectors between functional ecosystems and smaller isolated ecosystems. These open spaces may have some attributed of functional ecosystems but not enough to be major service providers and keystones in the regional ecological systems. These areas act as buffers between built environment and sensitive functional ecosystems and therefore have a significant role in the functioning of the system as a whole. Much of Cliffdale even when developed should function as partially functional ecosystems.
• Isolated ecosystems: small isolated areas of open space that supply a small number of ecosystem services. These areas act as stepping-stones to assist movement of species that maintain ecological viability of functional and partially functional ecosystems.
A set of environmental controls6 that relate to each of the above functional areas were included in the scheme clauses under the section referred to as: "General Restrictions Relatingto Specific Land Uses". (See Appendix 13)
(iii) Implementation of the Environmental Controls
There are currently no public owned sites in Cliffdale and therefore the municipality could not allocate Public Open Space zoning or reservation to any of the properties as defined by the above three open space categories. The problem was further aggravated by the Town Planning Ordinance that compels the municipality to expropriate such reserved land within a five-year period. The above
6Kerry Seppings Environmental Management Specialist:Cliffdale, Shongweni ,Salem Environmental Assessment. January 2000: 36-38.
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environmental controls are therefore applicable to all the zoning and their respective controls are contained under the "General Restriction" clause of the scheme which eludes the reader of the scheme clauses that there are additional environmental controls applicable which are contained in an annexure to the scheme clauses.
In terms of the Land Use Scheme Map, the use of Geographical Information System technology was used in depicting the environmental areas as an overlay on the scheme map.
Due to municipality's lack of capacity and resources to implement an environmental management plan, it was anticipated that such controls would be enforced by way of conditions of rezoning, special consent, subdivisional or building plan approvals. Examples of such conditions could include:
• subdivisional application to be approved on condition that the owner removes all alien invasive plants from the property;or
• completion certificates for building works not to be issued on completed buildings unless any disturbed areas are rehabilitated; etc
The preparation of the Environmental Management Plan was guided by ecosystem management principles and actions as defined by the D'MOSS Framework Plan. The most significant management interventions required to ensure the long term sustainability of the open space system in Cliffdale included alien plant control, grassland management, riparian management, and indigenous plant use. The EMP recommendations were used as a supporting document to further guide landowners and developers who are required to take action in terms of the above controls.