Township Establishment application in Johannesburg.

Unlike a subdivision, which divides a property into portions, township establishment creates an entirely new cadastral entity: a named township with a general plan, a street layout, erven zoned for their intended uses, and public places vesting in the municipality. The general plan is approved by the Surveyor-General and the township is then proclaimed, after which individual erven can be transferred.

The application is multidisciplinary by nature. Alongside the planning motivation, a municipality will ordinarily require engineering services reports covering water, sewer, stormwater and roads, a traffic impact assessment, geotechnical investigation, and confirmation of bulk services capacity - and separately, environmental authorisation where the National Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998 listed activities are triggered.

Approval comes with substantial conditions of establishment: services to be installed, contributions to be paid, land to be transferred to the municipality, and a period within which the township must be established. Meeting those conditions, rather than obtaining the approval, is usually the longest phase of the project.

The Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act 16 of 2013 (SPLUMA) is the national framework: it requires every municipality to adopt its own land use scheme and municipal planning by-law, and it makes the municipality - not the province - the authority of first instance on land development applications. Township establishment is dealt with under the municipal planning by-law, with the general plan and proclamation governed by the Land Survey Act 8 of 1997 and the Deeds Registries Act 47 of 1937.